New Dark Aesthetics: The Bats Project by Nestor Pestana
The Bats Project is part of New Dark Aesthetics, an investigation into how species such as bats have been portrayed in Western popular culture and how these representations shape our perception of them. Drawing on examples from cinema and videogames, the project questions portrayals that privilege horror, fear, and eradication while overlooking ecological relevance. Through collaborations with ecological experts, artists, and local communities, the project explores new ways of experiencing and imagining bats.
Nestor Pestana invited me to create a sound work for The Bats Project. Having heard my previous sound pieces, he was interested in how my approach to synthesis could be used to explore the sonic world of bats.
Working from a collection of bat recordings supplied by the project, I analysed and reconstructed their vocalisations through analogue synthesis. Rather than aiming for exact reproductions, I was interested in creating sounds that existed somewhere between recognition and imagination. These synthetic bat calls formed the basis of a sound composition, accompanied by subtle environmental sounds that created a mysterious atmosphere.
For the performance, I developed a live version of the sound piece using the bat recordings alongside my synthesised material. I performed together with Briony Hughes, responding live to her poetry reading through sound. Although we had never rehearsed together beforehand, the performance worked particularly well and I’m hoping to collaborate more with Briony in the future.
