David Wallraf

*30 copies limited edition* Subsongs is supposed to function like the soundtrack to a non- existent film. The images evoked by these songs depend on the imagination of the listener. Subsongs itself is a term borrowed from ornithology. It means any utterances from birds that are not associated with their standard ‘songs’ that make them recognizable as a species (e.g. the subsong of crows includes a lot of chirping and/or melodic sounds that are not normally associated with their ‘krah’ song. These recordings also function on a level below the traditional understanding of songs). Birds are the central protagonists in this absent movie. Not as a stand-in for nature, more as a metaphor for ‘far removed from human’, the other, the alien yet familiar. Some titles refer to this more or less directly: Hatching and Sprawling is what birds generally do, Traceless Movements is a description of flying, Exits of the Sky are what birds find when they land anywhere.