Radio broadcast on Pittsburgh's 88.3 FM WRCT, October 31, 2007 (week of the first frost)
For one hour, a compilation of the songs of locally native crickets and katydids was broadcast over the airwaves, available to any listener who happened to tune into that frequency.
A proposal to use the stadium sound system to arrange and play a soft orthopteron (singing insect) soundtrack at both dawn and dusk in the late Pittsburgh fall or early winter. These times of the day are peak for the singing insect’s song, and yet, are presented in a transitional part of the year when the insects are becoming increasingly dormant if not entirely so. By amplifying this sound, I aim to bring out the invisible: both the sounds that are so often ignored, as well as the animals which are rarely seen, yet so clearly abundant around us.
The sounds are compiled from natural insect calls native to Western Pennsylvania. I am seeking that initial awe of the passerby who upon approaching the subtle sound may have a momentary lapse in time in which the cycles of the year are inarguably brought into question, in which the individual may simultaneously notice a presence and an absence of a prominent part of their environment simply because it has reemerged in an atypical context.
Northern Spring Field Cricket, Gryllus veletis
Twospotted Tree Cricket, Neoxabea bipunctata
The boxes were placed outside a gallery on a parking sign and above the gallery door. As it was the middle of December in Pittsburgh, no living crickets were around. The chirping sounds could be heard from inside the gallery as well as from around the corner of the street.
As people approached the boxes, the chirping would stop.
The chirping persisted for most of the night, as traffic was light in the cold.
The surprise of the evening was a dog completely enamored and utterly confused by the chirping.