‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory guide created by artist Christa Donner for Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park, activating messages from non-human residents: its pond, a resident tick, a tree, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology. Transcript of this track follows.
(water flowing, ducks softly quacking nearby)

Dear Human,
Look at you. Your body, reflected in my surface. All warped and crinkled up when the wind blows. All the stuff that’s tugging at you, just leave it here for a while. Let the ducks swim through it. \\\ Yesterday a family came by and I heard a snatch of conversation — the smaller one was telling one of the bigger ones about a dream she’d had. \\\ Maybe it sounds silly, but I hadn’t thought about that before: what are human dreams like?
Do you ever dream about the ocean? \\\ Sometimes the sound of cars streaming nearby lulls me into sleep, and my molecules remember what it is to rise up as a huge, foamy wave, and to then sink down again. (Whshhhhhhh. Whhhshhhhhh. Whshhhhhhh) \\\ Look at me, dear human. Look at us. No, really. Look into me, past your reflection. There are places where you can see deeper, under a shadow or near a shallow edge. The shapes of my soft sludginess, of rotting leaves and old bottles. In this form my pond-ness includes plants, sediments, calcium, fish. Under the surface there are more living things than you can imagine. I evaporate and condense over and over again, and eventually some of me will move through your body, too.\\\ Have you ever dreamed you could float, leave gravity behind? Of course you have. If we stand here long enough, we can all remember what it is to be a cloud. \\\ Close your eyes and feel the weight of your body. \\\ Take a deep breath in, and feel the tiny droplets of moisture all around you - and inside you, too. \\\ Breathe out, and feel the liquid in your body evaporate into the air above us with each breath. \\\ We are made of the same water. Water borrowed from the skies, from the rivers, from the winds. Through millennia the water that inhabits your body has been through the Mississippi, in icy mountain tops in Argentina, and in plant cells in Nepal. \\\ The water in you remembers all these journeys. \\\As you mingle with other molecules, find your own strong memory of water. Feel its temperature and weight. Find the smell of it.\\\ I know this part of you well. I know the rain, just as I know the water in your bathtub. They travel through soil, through chemical filtration, through living bodies. With every cycle something is added, and something is taken away. Microscopic messages from landscapes and bloodstreams. Limestone and iron oxide, medicines, plastic residue, drain cleaners, laundry soaps. The water is changing. And all the organisms that need water to live, you are changing too. \\\ The smallest droplets have gotten heavier with the weight of remembering, and as they join together they begin to fall. As you return to your human body, let the fluid move with the memory. Send a signal to let us know what you’ve found.

Pond

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory guide created by artist Christa Donner for Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park, activating messages from non-human residents: its pond, a resident tick, a tree, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology. Transcript of this track follows.

(footsteps in tall grass, crickets and birdsong, traffic)

Dear Human,
Why don’t you reach out your hand? Touch the tips of the tall grass as you pass. By the time you get this message, I’ll be gone. It’s safer that way. \\\ But I wanted to let you know that you were a great host. It’s not always that way. I’m really glad you made some time to come on over here. \\\ When I was just a nymph I fed on a rabbit, somewhere out there. I drank deeply, belly full of his blood. After that it was a long time before I could find another meal. Most of the larger mammals kept to the hard, gray paths, and the grasses were clipped much too short. Thank goodness for mice and their wanderings, you know? Somehow we wound up in this park, which seems like a fine place to settle down. \\\ Do you want to know my first memory of you? \\\ I was hungry, and I was waiting. Just hanging out at the top of one of those tall stalks of prairie grass with my forelegs in the air. Then I caught your scent. “Wow,” I thought. “Wow.” \\\ I figured you’d just stay on the path and walk on by. I tried to put you out of my mind. Thought about other animals who might wander along if I just waited a few more hours. And then, suddenly, there you were – leaning in for a closer look at a bird or a plant or something. I stretched out and grasped your body just before you moved off. (sigh) So lucky. \\\ So. Did you have a good walk? As we moved on together, I dug in my mouthparts and had the best meal I can remember. And not just because your blood is delicious… though oh my gosh, it really is. My eggs are almost ready now, and I guess what I want to say to you is - Thank You. Thank you for sharing what you have. With me, with the next generation. Just being here you’ve given back more than you know to this ecosystem, and I bet to many others as well. \\\ I want you to know that you are appreciated. I hope you have a great day.

Tick

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory guide created by artist Christa Donner for Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park, activating messages from non-human residents: its pond, a resident tick, a tree, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology. Transcript of this track follows.

(grass and twigs snapping underfoot, hearbeat, birdsong)

Dear Human,
Hello. Please, keep walking. \\\ Oh! Hi, you’re still there. Please, keep walking – don’t try to look for me. (whispered) I’m not interested in becoming your friend. I know it excites you to encounter another large animal here. Hearts beating, not afraid to look you in the eye. Maybe you should stop to think for a moment about why that’s so unusual. \\\ I remind my young to keep their distance, stay alert, and be ready to run, just in case. \\\ Maybe you should be more alert.
\\\ Stop. Stand still for a moment. Did you hear that? \\\ Scan the patterns of light and dark for movement. Breathe. \\\ Sometimes humans bring their dogs in here. It can be really stressful. \\\ Once I took my children out beyond that fence over there, and honestly, I don’t understand what you all think you’re doing. Broken sharp things, loud sounds and bad smells. That stinking river of cars. Nothing growing except in little patches. It made me very nervous. \\\ Oh, someone’s coming. Come on, let’s keep moving. \\\ There’s really no privacy here for animals our size, but at least there are good food options. Take a closer look - can you see the line of ripped off leaves we’ve been eating? Those are the best plants, but I’m sure you can find something higher up. Have you tried the acorns here? \\\ I’m gonna leave you here now – this is making me hungry.\\\ Take care of yourself.

Deer

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory guide created by artist Christa Donner for Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park, activating messages from non-human residents: its pond, a resident tick, a tree, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology. Transcript of this track follows.

(worms moving through wet soil, deep vibration, children playing)

Dear Human. Dear Humanananan, 
I am Humus. I am living soil. My mothers move through my body, their breath and decomposition bringing heat even when the air is cold. They caress and soften and rot, pulling everything apart and mixing it up together again until we are all one, moist thing.  \\\ (inhales deeply) Mmmm…. I smell your familiar scent, little human. Can you smell me, too? Don’t be afraid. \\ Press the tip of your shoe into my spongy surface. Scrape a mark to open me up. \\\ Now kneel down, and inhale the scent of my molecules. Run your fingers through me, like the children do. Breathe me in. \\\  My beautiful bacteria need no words. As you inhale they send out calming signals to produce serotonin in your brain. Gamma-proteo-bacteria boost your immune cells. \\\ I share what I have with many beings, until they drop leaves and seeds and collapse into me. Lay their eggs and die. They shove and shape me into who I am – who we are. We lie still together through the cold times until the sun warms us up and everything begins to change again.\\\ Over there past the fence, your dead return to me too, nestled deep within my folds, among the bodies of birds and opossum and others. All of them tended by millipedes, worms, and fungi. The calcium of buried bones feeds seedlings, brings new life. It happens over and over and it feels. So. Goood. \\\ And over here, your young are learning how to be a part of this world, touching and sensing and finding where to burrow or balance, when to let go. \\\ The trees are great teachers, aren’t they? \\\ Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. \\\ What else have you learned from the land? \\\ Whose bodies share their nutrients with yours, provide warmth and shelter? \\\ We called you here to find groundedness. Together we can make many things grow.

Humus

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory guide created by artist Christa Donner for Chicago’s West Ridge Nature Park, activating messages from non-human residents: its pond, a resident tick, a tree, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology. Transcript of this track follows.

(trees creaking and rustling in the wind, birds singing in the distance)

Dear Human,
Hi there. It’s me, over here -- the large tree just next to the path. \\ Listen. We have a quarter of our DNA in common. I think we might have some things to say to each other. \\ Could you step a little closer? Place a hand on my bark. It’s hard to feel you over there. \\\ That’s better.  I’ve got a question for you: How would you describe your relationship with Time? \\ I’ve always wanted to ask that, but we seem to exist at such different speeds that usually you’re gone before I can get the question out. \\ This has been a tough five or ten years. I’ve lost some good friends. We’d look out for one another – tip each other off when the bagworms were coming back, or if a polar vortex was moving through. Sometimes we’d just joke around. It’s hard to see pieces of them stacked up along the gravel road back there, their limbs cut off.  You seem like a good listener. \\ There are advantages to putting down roots. We share messages and memories across so many miles and thousands of years, in every direction. Lean into discomfort and feel it deeply. Consider which actions will mean something to those who’ll live generations from now, after our bodies have been turned into paper bags or mulch. \\ I want to show you something. Just stand still here with me.  Relax your limbs, relax your focus, and imagine that below your feet, tiny roots are burrowing down. Can you feel them? \\ Close your eyes. Can you hear the sound of my branches overhead? That’s all you need. Now let that reverberate down your trunk, and into the soil below your feet. \\ Can you feel that? It’s like a mirror underground, branches reaching out into the layers of the earth. Traveling past rocks, and the remains of older and older things.  \\ Down here, time is only connected through threads of mycelia. There’s no light at all. The earth presses in on all sides. Extend a root tip toward that hard thing to your left. There’s a chunk of something there, centuries closely packed together. If you stay in contact long enough, it’ll tell you its stories.\\ But for now, let’s return to the surface, traveling back up through your trunk, and higher, toward your crown. Lean your head back, and open your eyes. Look into me. \\ Every one of my limbs splits into branching points, smaller and smaller. Every branch is a choice, a possible future. Spending slow time here, in between the past and the future … is kind of the point. \\ When life moves a little too fast, I’m here. Feel free to come sit with me, if you need help slowing down. I can be a good listener too.

Tree

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory guide created by artist Christa Donner, activating messages from the non-human residents of this space: its pond, deer, trees, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology. Transcript of this track follows.

(sounds of traffic, distant airplanes, crickets chirping, insects and birds)

Dear Human,
Thank you for meeting us here. Go ahead and start walking in any direction that feels right to you. \\\ This land is home to billions of beings. You might know us as milkweed, coyote, tree of heaven, brown bat, coneflower. We are the deer, the night herons, hackberry, bagworms, and bees. \\\ This walk is about all of us: the multispecies community of which you are a part. Maybe it’s become hard to hear our voices over the many sounds of your own species, which have become quite… loud. So we’ve worked with others of your kind to translate and broadcast transmissions through your phone, a tool that seems to focus your attention. As our honored guest here today, you – and every lovely living thing inside and on your body, have become a part of our family here. Let’s get to know each other better! \\\ When you are ready to listen, choose a location on your map, or a being you’d like to visit. Once you’ve reached a place where you can find one of us, select the corresponding track and press “Play.” As you walk between locations, take off your headphones and really listen for a while, without adding any sounds of your own. Smell the signals we send through the air. See if you can sense what we are saying without amplification. And along the way maybe you’ll find ways to transmit messages of your own.

Welcome

A Portal is Opening. Listen with headphones to receive a transmission sent to you from around 200 years in the future. This portal was generated by artist Christa Donner, with Stella Donner-Yang. Thanks to the Rachel Epp Buller, Maria Velasco, South Park, and the Lawrence Center for the Arts for making this work possible. Transcript follows: 

(chime, adult voice) Hello. You've activated a transmission from year: 2226. // To experience it fully connect your headphones, now. // Thank you.  Please hold. // (child’s voice) Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? // Thanks for meeting me here. This works much better when we're in the same geolocation. // I'm standing almost where you are, only I'm in a room that's deep underground. // Well… and my “now” is about 200 years from your now, in one of many possible futures. // Since we can't see the same reality, this might seem a little confusing. So - I'm gonna close my eyes, and if you can, go ahead and close yours too. That way it's easier to find each other. // Is there a big circle in your mind's eye? Imagine the inside of the circle is all shiny, like a round pool filled with cold, silver liquid. // I'm sending out little ripples from the middle of the pool. // You might feel your feet vibrating a little. // There we go. (vibration, loud whoosh, prairie birds) // Do you recognize some of those sounds? // This room is called the Sixth Extinction Memorial. Once they know how much would be lost, our ancestors recorded as much as they could of every living thing. There's a big dome overhead, covered with thousands of little lights, like stars. Each one stands for a different being that shared this planet in your time. This is where we honor those who came before us, and learn from them. So like, if I touch this button… (bird call) I can hear the Red-Winged Blackbird, and what she has to say … Prairie grasses, telling us how hard the wind blew, an American bullfrog, a coyote. // My name is Heron, after the great bird and skilled hunter. As part of The Remembering, I learned that Herons lay pale blue eggs and had wingspans as big as six feet across! I know how to find my way using stars, air currents, and magnetic fields. I've been learning how to stand still watching and waiting for the right time to act. (Thunder, child laughs) I'm still figuring it all out. // This does feel like the right time to reach out to you though. I read that during your time, a lot of really big things were going on in the world all at once. It kinda makes sense that a lot of people wanted to hold onto old fashioned ways of doing things, instead of thinking further ahead. So I wanted to send you a message in this now, to let you know that in at least one future, here we are: we're learning about you and your people, and some of the amazing species in your time. // There's something I want to ask you to do with me. Okay? // So just for a minute, try to clear your mind. // Think of all the non-human beings that share this land. If you knew they might not return next year, which ones would you miss the most? Focus on one that you really hope will be around for a long time. Picture them clearly in your mind. // What sounds do they make? // Do you know how they smell, or feel? // What do they need to stay healthy? // Once I stop speaking, I need you to do me a favor. Before you get up and go about your day, dig up a piece of paper and something to write with.  Just sit here for a minute to record what you can. Draw or write about this living thing. What should children of the future know? // And when you're done? Go home, and put your answer between the pages of a book on a shelf. // Many years from now, someone will find it, and it will be passed along, and passed along again. // It's here in the Memorial now. It's one of my favorites. // Thank you. (loud whoosh, chime, adult voice) The transmission has ended. This portal is now closed. Goodbye.

A Portal is Opening

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory audio guide that activates messages from non-human residents of this landscape: its frogs, deer, trees, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology.

Dear Human was written and produced by artist Christa Donner, with field recordings collected during Spring and Summer evenings at Tryon Farm. Special thanks to Alice and Caroline Tomlins for bringing their voices to the frogs' performance, and to the Tryon Farm Institute for supporting this project. Transcript follows:

(sound of frogs peeping) 
Dear Human, 
Tonight’s preview is about to begin. / Please refrain from talking… or making other distracting noises. For the full performance, you’re invited to join us here after dark, on a cool Spring evening.  / In the meantime we’d like to share a sample from our latest show: “Love Songs for the Future.”/ Is everyone ready? / Shall we begin? / Let’s begin. (many frog voices singing)/ Have you ever been in love?  Have you seen the future, emerging from a cluster of tiny, perfect eggs?  / What songs do you sing in the dark, on a cool, damp evening? / Will your voice shift too, as the temperatures change? / This is a love song for the future. For vernal pools, their green waters brimming with life and the sound of many voices. For that sense of awakening, to the warmth of the sun thawing our frozen blood after a long, cold winter. Bodies softening. We sing to the rhythm of hundreds of heartbeats. For generations to come! / To sing for the future is to know the present and also the past. Learn and move forward. You’ve got to quiet down when the air grows thick with heat. Leave the eggs behind and head for skin breathing in the cool waters. The young ones will shape-shift as they learn to feed and fend for themselves, just as you once did. / To sing for the future is to sing for adaptation When the cold comes, it’s time to release the sugars that have been building in your blood. Slow down. Stop. It’s time to reflect on what you have done, and not done. What you hope will be. This is important, this pause. / Wait. Dream. / Until bodies thaw and hearts begin their steady beat again, and it’s time to raise our voices, finding just the right frequency… (frog chorus, train whistle) No, not that one. / Finding just the right frequency to sing a love song to this spinning planet. (frog voices build) Louder! - Louder! To this spinning planet who is everything. More than everything. / This is a love song for the future.

Frogs

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory audio guide that activates messages from non-human residents of this landscape: its barn, deer, pond, trees, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology.

Dear Human was written and produced by artist Christa Donner. Special thanks to Sean Tomlins for lending his voice to the Barn, to and to Tryon Farm Institute for its support of this project.  This track includes a recording of dairy cows by Jumpbug99, prehistoric sounds by Flood-mix, and fiddling courtesy of theFlyFishingFilmmaker. Transcript follows: 

(sound of boots on wooden floor)
Dear Human,
I’m glad you’re here.  Come on in.  \\ You humans (chuckles) always movin’ around. While you’re at it, though, maybe lean a little bit to your left. (floorboards creak)\\ Ahh, Right there. Help me work out those knots. 
I’ve been sittin’ here since, what, 1892? \\ These bones hold echoes of all the living things I’ve sheltered here over the years. See those worn out floorboards? C’mon over and stand there. Just listen. \\ (sounds of carpentry)So many human hands went into making me what I am today. Working together to place stone upon stone, beam upon post. Tree trunks chopped down and sawed into planks - Laid out neatly, like so. \\ (sounds of cows mooing) Hear that? Underneath where you are now, my body was home to many milking mothers. You can still find their names written down there: Snowball, Lulu Belle, Buttercup…  It’s been a while since I heard those voices. \\ In the parts of me that settled down underneath their feet… well, I can remember much farther back. Those old stones formed over thousands of years, knew animals and plants that have long since disappeared. I’ve learned not to take these things for granted. Nothin' lasts forever. \\ Parts of me will collapse back into the earth to mingle with my ancestors. If you’re willing, maybe you can help patch things up. \\ Summer nights, my sides are lit up with picture-stories, sometimes filled with music and dancin’. During the day I settle in and listen to the chickens next door, the bats and birds who shelter in my rafters. the sound of human folks tending the gardens nearby. \\ I want to let you know that I’m thankful for this time we have together. A century and a half from now – will I still be around? Will you? What kind of place will we leave for the ones who come after us? \\ Over there, where they used to store bales of hay, now there’s a circle of chairs. A place where folks come to learn more about this land, and how to take good care of her. I’m glad to be a part of that work. Hope I can be of service for many years to come.

Barn

‘Dear Human’ is a multisensory audio guide that activates messages from non-human residents of this landscape: its prairie, pond, deer, trees, and others. Pair your smartphone with headphones for an immersive experience merging narration with the existing soundscape through site-specific prompts to listen, touch, and find your place within the local ecology.

Dear Human was written and produced by artist Christa Donner. Special thanks Kathy Dennis, Kristina Isabelle, and Sean Tomlins for lending their voices to the  prairie grasses, and to Tryon Farm Institute for supporting this project. Transcript follows: 

Dear Human, (3 voices, whispering)
Deear. Human. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. // You don’t have to do it alone. You can’t do it all by yourself. Nobody else is. We’re all part of this messy web of life together, and we help each other out. Don’t forget that, when things get hard. // You humans are clever animals, aren’t you? You made so many new things to depend on: machines made of precious metals and fabricated plastics. Does it make you feel more grounded? Does it make you feel calmer, to need those things so much? // The best technologies have been here all along, and the only upgrade you’ll ever need is to pay attention: the sun and moon tell us the date and time, stars and magnetic fields show us which way to go. // This one (cricket chirps) can always tell us what temperature it is, if you count the chirps the right way. I’m sure you can find out about that on one of your devices.  // Sway with me. Loosen up a little. Everything’s about to change again. (wind blows)Yess. Run your fingers through us. (sound of wind in grasses)If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s how to bend when the wind blows hard, and stay grounded. Our kind came in when the glaciers folded back. Later on, our ancestors were cleared and ground under for farmland, grazed by animals, mowed and sprayed. We’ve been through drought and through fire, digested the fallen bones of gentle foragers and great hunters. Each time, we grew back stronger and healthier than before. // It’s good to be among so many friends here – bluestem and switchgrass, horse mint and milkweed. We all contribute to this community in different ways. Together, our differences make us resilient. (voice 1) My fine roots sink into the earth, thirteen feet deep, an embrace strong enough to hold back flooding and erosion when the storms come.
(voice 2) I pull poisons from the soil without a sound, transforming their molecular structure into nutrients so we can all thrive. (voice 3) I’m a healer, soothing wounds and easing digestion. My leaves offer food and comfort. Like everyone here, I’m happy to share what I have … if you ask with respect and listen for the answer. // There are so many who depend on our talents, and of course we rely on them too: the insects, birds, humans, and other animals. There’s so much to learn from one another. Just remember: Take only what you need, and leave the rest to share. You’ll be all right.

Prairie

Merging the formats of an audio tour and a guided visualization session, this multisensory installation opens a conversation with the emotional architecture of our own bodies. Participants are invited to experience sensory travel untethered from medical imagery. This is a trailer for the original 20-minute experience.

More Information

Guided (teaser)

walk with me as I feed the chickens and then stand to listen to the rain fall by the stream during an exceptionally warm (60+ degree) December day in rural Massachusetts.

Sunderland Soundscape

Step outside and let's take a walk. In Listening Through the Landscape, Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang present short, guided walks that explore the nature of time and the ecology of Singapore through trees, soil, and water. Combining narration with environmental sounds collected during the 2020 Circuit Breaker period, we invite to transform everyday spaces into multisensory journeys. Visit Gillman Barracks to find QR codes that will activate the walks, or use the links here to experience your own neighborhood in a new way. Produced for FreeJazz III. Sound.Walks, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art.

Water

Step outside, slip on your headphones, and let's take a walk together. "The Living Machine" is one of five short, guided journeys that explore the nature of time and the ecology of Singapore through soil, sound, and water. Created by artists Christa Donner and Andrew Yang, each track in the series "Listening Through the Landscape" merges narration with environmental sounds collected during the 2020 Circuit Breaker period, transforming everyday spaces into multisensory journeys. Use the links here to experience your own neighborhood in a new way. Originally produced for the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, made possible through an artist residency at Yale NUS College. 

Concept, Writing and Sound Design: Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang
Narrated by Alexis Chen

This program is meant to be experienced through headphones. Use in combination with your smartphone to walk and listen at your own pace and schedule.

The Living Machine

Step outside, slip on your headphones, and let's take a walk together. "Treecology" is one of five short, guided journeys that explore the nature of time and the ecology of Singapore through soil, sound, and water. Created by artists Christa Donner and Andrew Yang, each track in the series "Listening Through the Landscape" merges narration with environmental sounds collected during the 2020 Circuit Breaker period, transforming everyday spaces into multisensory journeys. Use the links here to experience your own neighborhood in a new way. Originally produced for the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, made possible through an artist residency at Yale NUS College. 

Concept, Writing and Sound Design: Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang
Narrated by Alexis Chen

This program is meant to be experienced through headphones. Use in combination with your smartphone to walk and listen at your own pace and schedule.

Donnersounds

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