Other Sonic State Design
Batmania - Federation Square - Melbourne

This is the soundscape that accompanied Batmania sculpture and sound installation by artist / sculptor Kathy Holowko and myself in the Atrium of Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia during April & May 2015.

The soundscape represents a day and night in the life of the Grey Headed Flying Fox (aka fruit bats). Starting at dusk from their colony in the Yarra Bend park, an expansive bush land park in the heart of the city of Melbourne, they fly out in their thousands, filling the sky like a scene from a Gothic horror, to the suburbs of Melbourne, where they feed on the nectar of Eucalyptus trees, like those at the bottom of our garden where some of these recordings were made, returning to the colony before dawn.

The recordings were made using a Rode NTG3 shotgun microphone into a Sound Devices 552 recorder. The colony sounds comprise 5 separate tree recordings, basically made by standing underneath a tree loaded with bats, hoping not to get pee'd on because they carry some pretty unpleasant diseases. The garden section comprises 2 separate recordings made in a similar way.

This is a stereo version, collapsed from the original 5 channel mix, which were assigned to 5 speakers around the atrium to create a surround sound. I mapped wing beating sounds to travel around the atrium, causing members of the unsuspecting public to duck for cover on occasion. The original looped to approximate their daily life cycle of colony > commute to work to put food in the belly > commute to home colony > repeat, not unlike another mammal that comes to mind.

In fact these megabats are thought to be more closely related to us humans than they are to their microbat cousins due to their opposing fingers and thumbs. Despite their spooky image they are in fact very cute, especially the babies, three of which were brought to my recording studio earlier this year for what was definitely the weirdest recording session i have ever undertaken. They were rescue bats, hand reared by a volunteer, and although they were used to being handled and bottle fed, they were not toilet trained and had the incredible propensity to projectile defecate on my expensive microphones. The baby bat sounds didn't make the final cut, but it was an unforgettable experience.

The installation, which comprised over 200 life size flying bat sculptures and sound, was a great success, and the original month in Federation Square was extended to two months, and is now making it's way around Australia visiting various cities and festivals on it's mission to demystify these wonderful creatures that suffer from considerable prejudice.