Audio-Technica Helps Bring The Jungle To Times Square

Audio-Technica's range of microphones and headphones have been chosen to help capture sounds of the Amazon for Soundwalk Collective's JUNGLE-IZED: A Conversation With Nature art installation.

From April 1, Soundwalk Collective, an international sound collective based in New York and Berlin, will present JUNGLE-IZED: A Conversation With Nature – a month-long interactive multi-sensory art installation that will transform Times Square and transport over half a million visitors daily to the heart of the Amazon.

Presented in partnership with David de Rothschild, The Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC), Times Square Arts, Audio-Technica and CXA+ART, the immersive installation includes a participatory audio experience and an interactive video, to encourage a conversation with nature and to heighten awareness of the environmental impact of climate change.

It's a soundscape that began with Audio-Technica – the company's BP4027 and BP4029 stereo shotgun microphones (based on models developed for use in the Sydney Games in 2000) and AT4050ST large-diaphragm stereo condenser microphones were taken into the Peruvian Amazon by Soundwalk Collective to record the voices of Shipibo shamans and narration by Amazon experts Jeremy Narby and Daniel Pinchbeck, guiding visitors along a jungle tour and into a conversation with nature.

The composition features additional Amazon rainforest sound environments recorded by acclaimed sound artists Francisco Lópe.

As part of the Times Square Arts' At the Crossroads program – which includes installations and performances on the public plazas of Times Square – visitors will be invited to take self-guided audio tours of the Amazon by downloading the JUNGLE-IZED mobile app, available via Times Square's free Wi-Fi service. From noon to midnight throughout April visitors can also borrow a pair of Audio-Technica's ATH-M70x headphones from the official JUNGLE-IZED kiosk, to begin the journey through a virtual soundscape that superimposes the Amazon ecosystem upon an eight-square block area of Times Square.

This audio experience will be accompanied by a video, directed by Stephan Crasneanscki of Soundwalk Collective, which will be shown every night in April from 11:57pm to midnight on the electronic billboards of Times Square as part of Times Square Arts' and Times Square Advertising Coalition's Midnight Moment program. The JUNGLE-IZED film will invite spectators to take part in a simple collective action in celebration of Earth Month, revealing the hidden energy that exists in one of the most biodiverse environments in the world bringing the animals, the air, the trees, and the tribal inhabitants of the Amazon to New York City.

Filmed with Nikon D750 and Nikkor lenses, the video was shot along the longitudinal 73rd Meridian West that connects Times Square with the Peruvian Amazon. Visitors will be encouraged to view the video through their phones by enabling a negative viewing function on any iOS device, inverting the colours to reveal a "positive" version of the film.

Sohichiro Matsumoto, Global Creative Director at Audio-Technica, said: "The Amazon jungle has many layers of sound, from the leafcutter ants on the ground to the sudden downpours from the sky, so it was essential that the microphones we provided captured every single sound with clarity. The BP4027 and BP4029 microphones provided have the capability to both accurately pinpoint sound at long distance whilst also capturing wider stereo soundscapes.

"Our ATH-M70x headphones are perfectly designed to deliver this audio experience to participants thanks to their ability to provide excellent sound isolation, coupled with a driver that accurately reproduces extreme low and high frequencies – from 5Hz to 40Khz - making them ideally suited to the rich and varied soundscape of the Peruvian Amazon."

Soundwalk Collective said: "Godard once said: the positive is in the projector, and the negative is in the camera. We have reversed this concept, showing the negative image and the missing sound in order to remind us all that life in every shape and form is a given. And after, you have to live and make your destiny. Nature was given to you as a positive and life has no meaning if you don't take care of it with duty. When we take these headphones off, or see the real colour of Nature in the screens around us, hopefully we will also understand our immediate responsibilities."

Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance, said: "With unique insight, the artist here has taken the "urban jungle" metaphor --which expresses so many of the challenge of an intensely urban and Darwinian place like Times Square --and turned it into a joyous celebration of something wholly different. By drawing in the sounds of a true jungle, this allows New Yorkers and visitors to experience a new, hybrid jungle that is unique to Times Square."

JUNGLE-IZED.com

audio-technica.com

(MH)