OR poiesis: YAMAMAYU, 2020, 8-channel sound composition
YAMAMAYU is a bio-acoustic sound-research project centring on the sonority of the Japanese oak silkmoth (Lat. Antheraea yamamai, Jap. ヤママユ), a nocturnal moth that, between the middle and the end of the 19th century, successfully assimilated in Slovenian deciduous forests. These forests have pronounced annual cycles and, at least until recently, prominent temperature amplitudes between summer and winter. This poetic research captures the life cycle of a yamamayu: larva, pupa and adult. The aspiration is the artist’s fascination with dislocated nocturnal poetic sonorities and with the sylvan-abstract textures of Japan and the local space, the artist’s affirmative and existential environment. The yamamayu nocturnal moth entwines all these elements. The artist collected its silk cocoons in the forests at the end of summer, not knowing until recently that precisely the light green cocoon of silk threads represents the remainder of the insect’s process of metamorphosis and concretely connects various forces and dislocated spaces.
In view of the current planetary environmental events, the project thematises the role and condition of forest habitats from the perspective of a specific species of nocturnal moths and their sensitive life cycle, enabled by a healthy forest. The cyclicality and thermal diversity, as well as the presence of large temperature differences needed by high deciduous forests, are also essential for a suitable habitat for the Japanese oak silkmoth. Annual moth populations are an indicator of the conditions in the forest and the seasonal, weather-related and atmospheric factors. In recent years, both temperature differences and the amplitude of those differences have noticeably decreased.
Acknowledgements:
With the financial support of the Municipality of Maribor / Co-organisation: Sonda Foundation / Special thanks: Dr Boštjan Dvořák