

The Great Animal Orchestra
Walking into this immersive audio-visual experience, it feels a little bit like entering a David Attenborough doco, minus the cinematic visuals, with an added sense like you’re also stepping into The Matrix. Making its Australian premiere as part of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, The Great Animal Orchestra is a mesmerising experience of animal sounds recorded in natural habitats around the world and arranged by American pioneer soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause. The immersive soundscape comes to life with colour-coded visualisations, created by United Visual Artists, of each animal's contributions to the ‘orchestra’ in vulnerable habitats in Africa, North America, the Pacific Ocean and the Amazonas. Created at the initiative of the Fondation Cartier pour L’art Contemporain in Paris, this immersive installation is presented at the Stargazer Lawn, Barangaroo for the duration of the Biennale from March 12 to June 13, 2022. When it comes to making movies, and a lot of immersive art installations, sound is usually the last element added to the mix. However in this environmentally charged work, audio is the essential central element. The Great Animal Orchestra will take you out of city life and into tropical grasslands, savannas and Arctic tundra for an ‘otherworldly encounter’ with a soundscape of 15,000 animal species recorded over the last 50 years. After working with musicians including George Harrison and the Doors and creating effects for film scores including Francis Ford Co