British Library and Invisible Flock (UK)

Online from sunset on 10 November 2020 to 2 January 2021

Explore Faint Signals here

(Please note: Faint Signals is available through modern browsers (such as Chrome or Firefox) but is not currently optimised for mobile devices.)

Looking ahead to Light Night Leeds 2021, which will explore the themes of nature and the environment, the British Library has commissioned Yorkshire-based interactive arts studio, Invisible Flock, to produce a new online digital artwork using sounds from wildlife, weather and nature from the British Library’s extraordinary collection

Set in an imagined Yorkshire forest, we invite you to explore a vast online interactive commission rooted in real life natural environments. Faint Signals is a digital experience that reflects the diversity and complexity of Yorkshire’s natural world. Using just a mouse and keyboard you can explore this world for yourself. Scroll over the landscape and unlock a rich variety of different sounds. Learn more about them through a simple narrative as you playfully bring to life a vivid and complex ecosystem.

While the forest is imagined, the flora, fauna and wildlife you will discover is all scientifically accurate and native to Yorkshire – though some of it is now sadly extinct. There are thousands of combinations to explore so you’ll never have the same experience twice.

The pandemic has slowed transport and industry and given some landscapes an unprecedented absence of human contact. We’ve seen sea eagles return to the Yorkshire Moors and deer taking over corners of East London. And, for the first time in many years, city-dwellers have heard birdsong all day long. As we contemplate how we live in a world impacted so much by COVID-19, Faint Signals considers our relationship with shared spaces and the natural world, as well as with sound, and how human impact has changed this over time.