Choir of Kin – Lichenography

Choir of Kin is an ongoing multipart, cross-media project by the collective Transformative Narratives, exploring experimental music notation and sound production processes through multispecies encounter. At Neue Galerie Graz, the collective presents their music notation technique, Lichenography, as an audiovisual installation. This technique was originally developed during a research residency within the framework of the European Media Art Platform in 2023.

Lichenography is a custom music notation method that generates sounds based on the morphological data of lichen. In this process the bodily shapes of lichens growing on trees and stones are manually traced and translated into MIDI notes using digital editing software to compose music. In this way, the lichens become active participants in the composition process, generating tone clusters from their physical structures. This approach is inspired by a technique developed by lichenologist Anne Pringle to track individual growth cycles and declines in biodiversity.

Lichens are a gateway organism to symbiosis and have played a significant evolutionary role in the process of plant life inhabiting land. Their structure consists of a fungal body that houses algae or cyanobacteria. While the fungi make up the majority of the lichen’s body, they provide protection from drought and UV light, while the algae and cyanobacteria produce sugars through photosynthesis, serving as the primary food source. This cooperation between fungi and photosynthesizing organisms forms a crucial bond that has existed for millions of years and plays a vital role in our ecosystem.

Inspired by these complex relationships, the collective explores the formation of multispecies worlds shaped by processes of survival and coexistence.They seek to tell stories that bridge the micro and macro worlds, expanding notions of human identity by learning from more-than-human life. The collective's themes and methodologies are shaped by their inquiries into symbiosis, landscape entanglement, and sympoietic world-building.

The animated visualizer makes the audible visible: as a thin line traces the shapes of the lichen, notes are triggered, and sound is produced. The audience is invited to watch and listen as a symphony unfolds.

Transformative Narratives is a collective founded by Tony Wagner and Lena Kuzmich that initiates performative and audiovisual experiences through transdisciplinary world-building. Linking stories, molding characters, and shaping glimpses of imaginary landscapes, the collective seeks to unravel transformative forces of the self, as well as the power of collective growth and radical care. Mutualism provides both theme and methodology to combine experimental music, visual arts, and text. Their projects disclose the queering of kinship, weaving personal stories into shared immersive experiences. In their recent work, Transformative Narratives explore multi-species worlds, thereby relearning how space is negotiated and communities formed.