Experience 'Habitat' an immersive project by experimental Australian musicians, featuring a streamed performance and live Q&A.

To mark World Elephant Day on Wednesday 12 August, we will be streaming the last pre-COVID Platform Arts performance of Habitat , a multimedia soundscape responding to recordings of an endangered and rarely-witnessed species, the African forest elephant.
This performance is the culmination of a creative project between Vicki Hallett, Jeremy Alsop and Steve Falk who combine field recordings from the native habitats of endangered species with improvised live music, inviting listeners to immerse themselves in these environments.

The sounds of the African forest elephant featured in this performance were recorded by the Elephant Listening Project (ELP), founded by Katy Payne at Cornell University. Both climate change and human activity are endangering the African forest elephant population, and the ELP monitors their populations through audio recordings. These animals are not easily viewed amongst their native habitat of the rainforests of Central and West Africa. Even some of the calls from forest elephants are uniquely difficult to track as they cannot be detected by human ears unassisted.
The ELP captures these sounds in acoustic recordings to study and aid conservation efforts for the African forest elephant. They also monitor ongoing threats to the species such as the logging industry, but also poachers illegally hunting for ivory. Some recordings even capture gunshots.
Habitat is a creative project by three Australian musicians:
- Vicki Hallett: woodwinds and loops
- Jeremy Alsop: bass, strings and laptop
- Steve Falk: marimba and percussions
Their performances are facilitated by sound engineer Jem Savage, and accompanied by video by Marie Pangaud.

A recorded album of this special performance is available to pre-order online: http://habitat3.bandcamp.com/album/habitat
Images and sounds courtesy of the Elephant Listening Project (ELP), Cornell University: https://elephantlisteningproject.org
Presented with NEAL: The New and Experimental Arts Laboratory as part of the ongoing series NEAL: On the Couch.

You can donate to their cause here:
Habitat and NEAL: http://www.vickihallett.com/donate-habitatneal
The Elephant Listening Project: https://elephantlisteningproject.org/help-elp/