WORKSHOP ABOUT BEE-SOUNDS



WORKSHOP WITH SOFTDAY APRIL 15 2014
Harp Art Lab, Harplinge, Sweden

SOFTDAY visited Harp Art Lab in april 2014 for a workshop about Bee-Sounds. The aim of this workshop was to create a collaborative project about beekeeping challenges in today's society and be shaped artistically by people from County Halland in Sweden: beekeepers, artists, musicians and singers).
(program).





Since 1999 SOFTDAY, the art-science collaboration of artist Sean Taylor and computer scientist Mikael Fernström, have engaged with issues relating to natural cycles in time, climate change and its global effects. As a collaborative team they use their arts practice to explore relations to and understandings of nature, expressed through sonifications and multimedia artworks and performances.

2011-2013 Softday collaborated with a number of Irish beekeepers, scientist and the monks of Glenstal Abbey, creating Amhrán na mBeach (Song of the Bees) about the life of honey bees and current threats such as Colony Collapse Disorder. Together, they performed the resulting work in the monastery Glenstal Abbey, April 2013. The music was based on scientific data from the Irish beekeepers, such as presence of varroa mites, foulbrood, etc.!

In recent years, beekeeping have collapsed in several parts of the world. Nobody knows for sure why, but a variety of different and sometimes contested theories have been presented and debated! Data from the Swedish Board of Agriculture was presented and a discussion between beekeapers and artists began.





How can the experience gained from the workshop be shaped artistically?



Sean Taylor talked about sound walks, field recordings and how to listening to the environment.

A sound walk in Harplinge.




The Harplinge Sound Map.



See you at

BZZZ - INTERNATIONAL SOUND ART FESTIVAL 2014