CHIRP & DRIFT

This first online edition of Chirp & Drift was presented by  OCM in partnership with  St George's Bristol for  Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival with a special focus on Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys, Oxford, on 20th-22nd November 2020. For two evenings, it was interactive.

An interactive digital experience of a flock of moving, glowing musical sculptures that perform a dusk-time chorus. The morse code chatter of these bird-like instruments was generated from the bird-themed street names of Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys, and real-time Tweets from the viewing audience.  Gentle tones and harmonies are made by accordion reeds hidden within each ‘bird’. As they move, air is pressed through the reeds, reminding the listener of the delicate and fragile state of the environment and our own health.

Tweets were invited about one of the birds named on the streets of Blackbird Leys of Greater Leys, Oxford. Chirp & Drift played the bird name using musical morse code, along with the tweets. Featured birds were... Blackbird, Kestrel, Merlin, Peregrine, Brambling, Linnet, Mallard, Falcon, Skylark, Robin, Hobby, Sparrow, Fieldfare, Tern, Plover, Warbler, Nightingale, Dunnock, Greenfinch, Kingfisher, Pochard, Swallow, Partridge, Pipit, Teal, Swift, Grebe, Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Moorhen. .... with the hashtag  #ChirpDriftOxford.

The movie below features poems by Greater Leys spoken word artist Rawz.  Filmed in the gardens of St George's Bristol, by Kathy Hinde and Alasdair Jones. Photographs of street name signs by Hugh Warwick.  Highlights from the lnteractive live streams will be available soon... please visit again!

So that we can all celebrate birds and acknowledge their plight in global extinction crisis, see the video further down this page to make your own origami bird.

Chirp & Drift is created by Kathy Hinde with software by Matthew Olden.  Commissioned by Lancaster Arts & Light up Lancaster 2018. Online edition commissioned by OCM in partnership with St George’s Bristol, 2020