Twitchr is a participatory on-line and off-line artwork that combines bird watching, social networking and graphic scores.
Play the map and trigger samples of birdsong recorded all over the world. Customise the playback settings to alter how you experience the soundscape. Include music box notes to discover what tunes the map markers can create by being read like a player-piano scroll.
log in to upload your own recordings of birdsong onto the map and add to Twitchr’s evolving, generative soundscape. If only want to upload part of your recording, audacity is a useful free audio editor. If you want to try and identify which bird you have seen and recorded, there is an excellent bird identifier on the RSPB website here.
Twitchr bird-walks are often organised to bring people together to listen and record birdsong. Keep checking this site to play the latest Twitchr soundmap, find out about Twitchr walks and explore the new Twitchr features and developments.
Twitchr combines on-line and off-line elements, both with the intention of bringing people together through a shared enthusiasm for birdsong, listening and walking. An on-line, global community and an off-line, local, real-time community operating at contrasting scales and speeds inviting different layers of engagement.
The off-line walks bring people together at a specific time and place. The pace is relatively slow with plenty of time for reflection, observation, sharing, waiting, watching, listening and conversation.
The on-line sound map connects field recording enthusiasts with a space for sharing bird recordings, which become part of a playful online ‘instrument’ for others to interact with. Playing with the sound map can range from a brief moment to a more engaged and considered interaction with the map as a sound-mixing instrument. For the contributing recordists there are two stages, one being out in the wild recording bird-song to then upload to the map.
Twitchr Version 1.0 (Launched October 2009) was commissioned by Thrive Somerset for the launch of somersetarts.com with support from The Merlin Theatre, Frome.
Further developments were commissioned by Lancaster Arts for their MOVE exhibition in Spring 2019
