DirkSorge.de

This audio piece is the outcome of artistic research exploring the phenomenon of ultrasonic sounds. This work was partly inspired by an essay by philosopher Thomas Nagel from 1974 and answers the question that he raised in the title: “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”. Nagel claims that humans will never be able to know how it feels for a bat to have certain perceptions that are fundamentally different from ours. We can manipulate recorded soundwaves and make them audible, but this will always be a translation or an interpretation and not the original experience.
I used an ultrasonic microphone to make recordings outdoors and indoors with 384 kHz sample rate. Sound sources were vehicles, birds, insects, electronic devices, electric lights and many more. These recordings were then edited, e.g. pitched down by several octaves or slowed down.

Play stereo version as mp3 (7:41 min.)

This project was made possible by a work grant from the Cultural Office of the City of Leipzig.