Clearance: Great Animal Orchestra

Bernie Krause

Since the 1970s, American bioacoustician and musician Bernie Krause has recorded more than five thousand hours of natural habitats, including at least fifteen thousand terrestrial and marine species from all around the world. Poetic and scientific at the same time, this sound archive reveals the musical harmony and orchestral organization of animal vocalizations.

This book presents The Great Animal Orchestra, a work created in 2016 by Krause and United Visual Artists for the exhibition spaces of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris. It tells the story of this immersive installation, from recording the sounds in nature to their visual translation into a three-dimensional video installation by United Visual Artists. Combining aesthetics and technology, The Great Animal Orchestra offers a sound and visual meditation on the necessity of preserving the beauty of the natural world.