'The Art of Night' Poulomi Desai of Usurp. Outdoor Sound Installation 2006 - Field Recordings

***This video features extracts from the original video of the live installation and event.
Commissioned in 2006 by Home Live Arts and Moti Roti for "Light It" © Poulomi Desai of Usurp.***

On a calm autumnal October evening in 2006, Myatts Fields, Camberwell - a beautiful Victorian park in South London was transformed into a dynamic performance space to celebrate the start of winter, with multi-sensory performances by seven artists and thousands of local people.

Poulomi Desai as part of Usurp, created a 12 channel 3D effect evocative sound installation buried in the foliage of the trees and bushes lining a 200 metre avenue, filling the air and greenery with live compositions using her field recordings with open source recordings of animals that come to life at night. Creating a live mix that responded to the audience, the installation heightened the architecture and alignment of trees, both visually and aurally. Singing insects, chirping and hissing tree frogs, insistent musical birds, and wailing wolves created an orchestra of unfamiliar natural sounds mixing with the familiar sounds of police sirens. Her own field recordings were made over the last 20 years in Bermuda, Kutch - India, Palm Desert - USA, and London. The live mixes evolved as dusk changed to night culminating in South London's birds and dogs responding to the howling sounds of their distant relations, creating an unexpected highly sensory, captivating call and response dynamic. This installation has been often copied!