LAST WHISPERS

Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes and a Falling Tree

curated by David Sheldon
October 21-23rd, 2016
London, UK

Last Whispers is a project about a mass extinction of spoken languages. The immersive sound and video installation premiered at
The British Museum during the Bloomsbury Festival, October 2016, and will continue to exhibit around the world.

80,000 visitors experienced Last Whispers at The Living and Dying Gallery during three days (according to The British Museum) .

IMMERSIVE ORATORIO

sound / video installation or a concert dedicated to the extinction of languages (running time: 46 minutes)

Last Whispers is simultaneously a film projection and a choral pre-recorded composition with binaural* sound, resulting in a 46-minute long visceral experience—an immersive oratorio.

The video consists of 3D animation, video drone footage and stills (all in black-and-white) poetically linking image and sound.

The Oratorio is a chorus of extinct and endangered languages, both spoken and sung, composed from the historical recordings (speech, recitatives, incantations, songs and ritual chants) punctuated by the sound of interpreted gravitational waves of the collapsing stars and supernovae recorded by LIGO “The Listening Ear.”

 Last Whispers is, in essence, a film with binaural* sound and it has two interpretations / editions:

IMMERSIVE ORATORIO (46 min installation)

Museum / Concert Hall / Cathedral Installation and Concert

·       Last Whispers plays on a loop as an installation at the top of the hour or

·       Last Whispers plays as a choral concert and film event at a given time

·       Video screen projection of animation, stills and drone footage in black-and-white

·       Audio projection (8.1 or binaural*) either via an 8.1 PA sound system or via earphones (as a binaural)

* Last Whispers was created and mixed in two ways: as an 8.1 public spatialized sound projection and as a binaural individualized sound projection. Both mixes mimic a sound environment the way human ears hear it live, unrecorded. They are perceived as a genuine 360° sound, registered by the mind as distinctly present and alive.

Premiered at the Living & Dying Gallery at The British Museum in October 2016.