Bioni Samp – [LAB 1 residency – June 4 to June 18]
Bioni Samp is an electronic sound artist and seasonal bee keeper from London.
Artist website
Before the rational framed hive, before industrialisation, before ecocide, there were bees and their sounds. Listening to the gentle buzzing of bees is known to have a calming effect… But bees can be angry too… Bees are the sentinels of our ecosystem, our pollinators, our society blueprints… and more.
During the two weeks residency at Eleonore, I will set up and manage a ‘bee frequency log hive electronic apiary’, a sound installation where daily harvesting (recordings), processing (audio) and distributing (listening) take place via qr code ‘seed’ cards and streaming online. In the ‘electronic apiary’ four tubular log hives are created from recycled plastic tubes, all sourced locally. Each log hive (1 metre long approx.) is suspended with string from ceiling or placed hanging from the walls. Bee sounds and vibrations make seeds fall out of the log hives (Non terminator seeds). Each installation log hive (a common hive design, usually made of ceramic pipes or logs, in Africa and middle east) transforms to becomes a ‘Bee Sound Cannon’ with a speaker and recycled mobile phone / mp3 player inside, playing loops of recordings, all from last year, recorded inside real beehives, using my home-made specialist recording equipment. (Binaural Beeframe EMF Detector 2015)
The first three log hives transmit sound recorded from London, Sweden and Slovakia respectively. The fourth one is hopefully filled by sounds created by recording local hives in Linz with local beekeepers. (Bee Recording Field Trip / Workshop) Bee recordings are amplified inside the tube of the log hive, the distorted sounds
reverberate off the circular walls and are projected outward. The simultaneous international bee voices from London, Sweden, Slovakia and Linz call our attention, collectively they are a loud global protest, a link to the past, to an active, sustainable connection with nature.
Activities proposed during the residency
– People will be invited into the electronic apiary to listen and contemplate the bees communications.
– Witness the electrical resistance of honey when applied to the buzzing of bee frequencies.
– Participate in harvesting bee sounds and exploring bee frequency ranges.
– Data map hive recordings as catalysts for further sonic experimentation.(Pure/Data/Max MSP).
– Daily at the electronic apiary I will lead a bee frequency meditation session and explain my practice with my home-made bee frequency artworks. (Cross pollination with others).
– Externally people can ring the electronic apiary to listen to bees, leave a message and get a message specially generated from the bees from random sections of my apiarists diary #save the bees.