Artist par excellence Hanna Tuulikki has issued a call out for recordings of bat echolocation calls to be used in a new sonic composition titled Echo in the Dark — appealing to wildlife enthusiasts and ecologists who may have recordings of the echolocation calls of bats in Scotland and further afield, with a view to composing a new piece of music using the recordings. For the development of this work, Tuulikki will tune into more-than-human rhythms and frequencies, to explore the interconnections of bat echolocation and embodied dance music as a model for ecological coexistence. 

Nominated for the Max Mara Art Prize in 2020, Hanna Tuulikki is an artist, composer and performer based in Glasgow. Her practice spans performance, film and multi-channel audio-visual installation, blending together vocal music, choreography, costume and drawing. Hospitalfield — one of Scotland’s most important Art and Crafts houses, which now runs a highly regarded programme of contemporary art-focused residencies, commissions and events — have commissioned Tuulikki four months of Studio Time in order to develop ideas for Echo in the Dark, to be presented in the 2021-2 Hospitalfield Art Programme. 

Hanna is beginning to gather an archive of recordings to be made into a public library of sounds. From these, she plans to compose a new piece of music that will feature in a performance event at Hospitalfield. The recordings are made using bat detectors commonly used to identify bat species. Further information on how to use or purchase a bat detector are here.  

Hanna is currently looking for recordings of UK bat species made in a variety of ways, from heterodyne to time expansion and direct sampling. If you would like to contribute a recording, or for more information, please get in touch with Hanna and her team at inthedarkecho@gmail.com. 

Learn more about this project and hear recordings from the public archive here.