Byzantium is a sound experiment from artist group CHROMA investigating visionary language, birdsong and participatory algorithms. For the run of Libidinal Circuits, a golden bird will perch in a tree in Ropewalk square, sounding a polyphonic mix of the city’s desires, frustrations, memories and dreams. Like Yeats’ mechanical golden bird that sings in the eternal city in his poem Sailing to Byzantium, this metal bird will sing "Of what is past, or passing, or to come" by combining voices collected from the streets of Liverpool with audio streams of bird habitats out beyond the city limits.
The development of Byzantium during “Build Your Own” invites the public into the FACTLab to co-create oracles. This project is part of CHROMA's running experiment into technological circuits and symbolic, expressive language. Inspired by the historical concept of the "Language of the Birds" or the “green language”, a natural and symbolic language of vital creative communication said to run through myth, metaphor and everyday language, like a vital green seam through history. In 2015 network technology is increasingly used by companies to crowdsource human beings as isolated working components of large automated systems, designed to produce commercial content and financial profit. This project explores alternative participatory algorithms that invite expressive, divergent and creative words and mischievously invokes the "green language" of the city.
If you have something to say about what is and what could be, please call this number and leave a message - 01514382377
