Notes and acknowledgements

The pieces presented here are part of an ongoing project exploring the interconnections between bat ecology, electronic histories and urban gentrification. They do not represent a finished articulation of the project but a thinking out through an interplay of movement, meaning and code.

The walk logged in the GPS track was undertaken as research for a collective walk in Deptford, London, with the New Cross Commoners in late 2014. This explored relationships between bat ecology and the present aggressive development of London. Reflections on this walk and on the experience of solitary batwalking are on my website.

The original performance was created as a piece for the Sonic Arts course at City Lit. which was crucial for its conception. Thanks to Charles Matthews for recording video and Chaz for recording sound during the performance. Also thanks to the UK Bat Conservation Trust for lending bat detectors for both the performance and the earlier walk, and to Sian Moore for help with this and many other aspects of the project (not least for introducing me to bat detecting in the first place).

The Bat Conservation Trust website is a valuable resource for finding out more about bats and efforts to conserve them. The account of Spallanzani's research is principally drawn from Donald's Griffin's book 'Listening in the Dark', as well as the writings of Sven Dijkgraaf on the subject.

The visualisation of the performance has its origin in reflections I wrote on chronophotography for Sebastian Manley and Kirsten Irving's edited book 'Lives Beyond Us: Poems and Essays on the Cinematic Reality of Animals'. Matthew Beaumont's book 'Night Walking' was essential for locating two of the source texts used in the poem, as well as being an invaluable background source. Creating the final form was also aided greatly by YoHa's book, 'Aluminium', including its generously laid out pseudocode. Code and pseudocode for all aspects of this project will be made public at a later date, and linked to on these pages, with the exception of the sonification I moved to, which will not be shared.

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