Our First Source of Inspiration

The project began with this video. Myself and Sapphira found some lynxes talking to each other on Reddit.

By Zara

Our first response was to laugh and it became apparent that we were laughing because of how uncomfortable we were. We found more footage of more lynxes making similar noises and continued to laugh and feel very uncomfortable, particularly when we just listened to the sound alone. This reached a point where in order to break the ice we couldn’t help but question why we felt so uncomfortable. What we were laughing at was evidently natural and expectable from this animal.

To us, the noise was amusing and disconcerting because these noises sounded as though they could be coming from various situations yet it was indiscernible which. Explanations that arose in our minds included mating calls, mating itself, illness, giving birth, aggression, physical pain… we even thought the noises had a similar tone to a child crying. These were explanations we both agreed could be described as very natural processes and experiences, integral to the survival of life in the wild, but meanwhile we understood these as widely interpreted to be vulgar or somewhat stigmatised.

This made us wonder, why have we both learnt that these most ‘natural’ of processes, behaviours and experiences, are to be regarded as unsettling to acknowledge or discuss in detail? We also wondered, what would happen if we tried to create a piece of music out of these noises.