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David Rothenberg's blog

Arts

Can We Play Live Music with Whales?

David Rothenberg

[Terra Nova] • Experiments suggested that killer whales will trade riffs with human musicians. But as conservation became the major priority, scientists and activists neglected to pursue wailing with the whales. (more)

3-24-08

Arts

Welcome to this Situation: Notes on Being an Artwork

David Rothenberg

[Terra Nova] • In October I received a strange invitation to be part of an artwork at a prestigious midtown New York gallery by Tino Sehgal, an artist who has said, "We have too much stuff, I don't want to make any more." So he creates "situations." (more)

2-4-08

Eco

Whale Sex

David Rothenberg

[Terra Nova] • When an animal gets involved in a long, complicated or excessive display we always think it's got something to do with sex. But when humpback whales sing the longest, most ornately patterned song known in the animal world, for whom are they singing? (more)

11-9-07

Eco

Moby Click

David Rothenberg

Michel Andre is one of the world's great experts on the acoustics of the sperm whale. For years he was vexed about how to tell the clicking of individual whales apart when analyzing recordings made by groups of these Moby Dick-type whales foraging under water. Then he invited a Senegalese drummer, Arona N'Diaye Rose, to listen to his recording of a four-member unit of vocalizing sperm whales. Things started to "click" once he brought a drummer into the mix. (more)

7-4-07

Arts

Riots And Poems

David Rothenberg

[Terra Nova] • On April 27th, riots broke out in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. The Apollo bookstore put up wooden boards to protect windows, with the letters "Avatud" – which means "Open" – plastered across the sides. Days later, when a literary festival was held in Tallinn, writers saw the shop and spontaneously wrote poems upon the walls, in the many languages heard along the Baltic Sea. The Apollo had no more trouble with rioters. Read the poems here. (more)

5-29-07

Eco

Rothenberg vs. The Scientists: Round 1

David Rothenberg

[Terra Nova] • I’m in the middle of writing a book on making music with whales, a project which has taken me to Russia, Canada, and Hawaii, in search of giant sea creatures who want to jam. Sometimes they actually do. But some scientists I run across are more difficult than the whales themselves. (more)

5-3-07