Birdsong prints

birdsong and Syntax

Having watched and done more research on the individual elements of birdsong I came across Noam Chomsky the American philosopher and linguist and a diagram comparing grammar in languages and birdsong . What was interesting was the attempt at analysing the recurrence of elements within the songs in the same way as human language is ordered and whether they were repeated into ‘sentences’ that were then used by the birds in different contexts. This is purely theoretical and I think still not proven . All of this I felt was taking me away from the visual that i had started with but – it did resonate the linguistique element of the songs and perhaps how they might be read visually on the wall. So I made this small series in the studio as a trial using letter elements.

My idea is to draw up a kind of system of lettering so that I can use it with lots of songs – for example the letter A being given to the introductory notes of a birdsong. The letter Z given to the end of the song…. and so on.

Some how the wood seemed relevant to use, the birds that i am interested in are singing in woods – not in flight. I made a mistake with the woodblocks though in that i didn’t reverse the birdsong first – so they are in fact back to front !