Name: Jonáš Gruska
Nationality: Slovakian
Occupation: Sound artist, field recordist, composer
Current release: Jonáš Gruska is one of the artists contributing to harkening critters, an epochal, 33-track-encompassing compilation which "tunes in to the plethora of vocalizations, mechanical emanations, and any other acoustics phenomenon produced by animals." The album is available from forms of minutiae.

If you enjoyed this Jonáš Gruska interview and would like to know more about his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.
 


What sparked your interest in animal sounds? Are there any memories or experiences with these sounds that you can share?

My interest in experimental music is something that naturally brought me back to field recording, and animals are just wonderful in that aspect.

They will perform for you day or night, you just need to listen carefully.

What makes animal sounds interesting, inspiring, or just plain beautiful to you? Is there anything that continues to impress you about them?

The vast diversity of them is what fascinates me the most. The timbres, rhythmic patterns, melodies, even the frequency ranges. That is actually the key part of my work on the compilation—exploring vocalizations outside of human perception.

Another thing that fascinates me is that as humans divide the electromagnetic space into ranges predefined for specific communication, the same goes for acoustic space in the natural world. Thanks to evolution, the vocalizations of various species don’t overlap and can freely transmit information uninterrupted by others.

Did or do you do any research on animal sounds? If so, what were some interesting findings?

I like that with certain types of crickets you can deduce the outside temperature based on the frequency of their chirps.

There is a simple formula out there.



What did your first field recording set-up look like – and how has it changed over time?

I started with a mom’s portable tape recorder. I was recording absurd imitations of pop songs that I heard on the radio, in my own version of English (gibberish). The second big upgrade was a Zoom H1, a very affordable small recorder that has drastically upgraded my abilities.

From then on I went from a whole range of products. My favorite was probably the Sound Devices 722, which I still own. But to be honest, these days I rarely use it and mainly opt-in for the MixPre 3 II.

I use a lot of different kinds of mics, either my self-made LOM mics, Sennheiser MKH8020 or Lewitt LCT 540 S. But it all depends on the use case, I like to keep a lot of options available.

Tell me about your contribution to harkening critters, please. What were your considerations going in? When, where and how was it recorded?

It comes from my recent explorations of ultrasonic sounds and how the range in which certain animals vocalize is related to their perception of time. I used custom made ultrasonic microphones to capture bats and different kinds of insects.

These recordings often have an anthropogenic element, which creates a reference that we understand. So I started to explore the connection of “ultrasonic” animals and the speed of their time perception.

In the final composition various playback speeds of the same material are overlapped to simulate different perception rates at once.

The press releases to harkening critters uses the word “signals” to classify the sounds on the CDs. Undeniably, there are many “musical” moments on harkening critters, but how do you feel about the using the term “music” for them? What sets “signals” apart from “music”?

This debate lost me many years ago.

I have a very loose definition of what music can be, personally, but I understand that different people feel differently about this.

It is not important for me how I label things that I find enjoyable to listen to.

Do you think that true creative collaboration between animals and humans, as has been attempted for example by artists like David Rothenberg, is possible? Are there any such collaborations you've engaged in or would like to try?

For sure, David’s work is a good example of this.

I lived with various dogs and cats throughout my life, and they definitely can interact with sound/music in interesting ways. I even published a track where I “collaborated” with a dog on my album Spevy.



Based on your thoughts, experiences, examples, or intuitions, do you think it is possible that examining animal signals will at some point lead to understanding and, eventually, communication? What is your personal threshold for considering interspecies communication as successful?

Difficult question and I know way too little about this to answer it well.

I am hoping the increase in our capacities for machine learning/”AI” will also increase our chances in pattern finding in animal communication.

Interspecies communication is increasingly extended to plants as well. What are your thoughts on this?

I am very skeptical about contemporary art that “communicates” with plants or mushrooms. From my understanding, factual sensing some information that way is similar to using an EEG for brain waves—it requires very specialized low-noise equipment to get anything. So hooking up random wires to organisms is not convincing to me.

On top of that, artists tend to use this noisy data and apply all sorts of very subjective interpretations on top, including quantization (in boring western scales, to add insult to the injury!). The organism serves as a random signal generator more than anything else.

Some have argued that recording animals is a form of appropriation and that they should be compensated in some form. Do you have any thoughts on this?

I think we shouldn’t exploit animals at all—with or without compensation. Either for meat, for fur, for art or for sounds.

That being said, I don’t think passive recording of animals is exploitation.

Being exposed to the richness of the world of animal sounds can be an intense experience. How has listening to animals changed your views on various topics? (ecology comes to mind, but there may be more).

I think the biggest influence for me was the work of Bernie Krause—how sound can tell us a lot about changes in the environment which seemingly looks unfazed visually. That is when I started to realize the potential of how sound can help us understand environmental protection on a completely new level.

Field recording requires a certain kind of specific attention to the environment that tends to propagate to other parts of life. One can become more observant to the world around them and I think that it ultimately has its beneficial political consequences.