Invisible Dust
Pollution level: Moderate
Jeremy Deller – tracking bats in 2012
© Brown Long-Eared bat (© Hugh Clark / Bat Conservation Trust)
Artist Jeremy Deller is working with bat scientist Dr Kate Jones, to create a phone app and website to record and make images of the incredible sounds of bats.
Bats hear in 3D and may ‘hear in colour.’
Human hearing ranges 15 to 20 kHz depending on age. In comparison, some bats can hear sounds up to 110 kHz. Bats make calls as they fly, and listen to the returning echoes to build up a sonic map of their surroundings (echolocation). The bat can tell how far something is by how long it takes the sounds to return to them.
Internet experimenters Pachube and hybrid production company Disqo are working with Invisible Dust to enable audiences to upload and identify bat calls and then create 3D visualisations in real time, initially recorded on the Olympics Greenway and then internationally, launched at Create Festival, June 2012.
Jeremy Deller has a continuing interest in bats since making his Turner Prize winning film Memory Bucket in 2004 and in 2007 he established a national design competition to design a bat house.
Although Britain’s 18 species of bat are protected, their numbers are declining. Dr Kate Jones, Institute of Zoology (see scientists) has studied bats for 20 years and believes they are the heart beat of the environment. As the Director of iBats and Chair of the Bat Conservation Trust she is concerned that worldwide biodiversity is declining but there is little monitoring going on especially in real time.