A new online, interactive edition of Chirp & Drift has been created by Kathy Hinde specially for Blackbird Leys and Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival 2020 presented by OCM.

Tune in to 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 will be generated from the bird-themed street names of Blackbird Leys, and real-time Tweets from you, 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.

Films of Chirp & Drift performing the bird names from Blackbird Leys can be enjoyed online for the duration of the festival.

Chirp & Drift will be streamed from this page and OCM’s Website and Facebook page.

Kathy Hinde is an award winning audio-visual artist based in Bristol.

Tweet Your Street

You can interact live with the installation by tweeting about one of the featured birds. Chirp & Drift will play the musical video of your chosen bird, along with your tweet. Use the hashtag #ChirpDriftOxford and a bird name from Blackbird Leys or Greater Leys streets. See the interactive time slots below.

Online Showing times: 20th-22nd November

Interactive live stream times: Friday 20th and Saturday 21st November, 4.30pm – 8pm

Make your own origami bird

So that we can all celebrate birds and acknowledge their plight in global extinction crisis, Kathy has created a special video so that we can all make our own origami bird:

If you live in Blackbird Leys, we invite you to enhance Chirp & Drift by hanging your origami birds in your windows during the Christmas Light Festival and Tweet a photo of your bird to join others in an online montage using the hashtag #ChirpDriftOxford.

Chirp & Drift is created by Kathy Hinde, with software by Matthew Olden and presented by OCM.
Commissioned by Lancaster Arts and Light up Lancaster 2018. Online edition filmed in the gardens of St George’s Hall, Bristol.