The Opera of Prehistoric Creatures

source: highlike

Work: ‘The Opera of Prehistoric Creatures’ is an opera which sets up the rebirth of cloned creatures, their wandering and their sound epic. They are seeking to evolve in our contemporary era. The designer, who became the heroine of a quasi-mystic epic journey, aims at resuscitating the sound of prehistoric creatures by reconstructing their vocal tract. This is problematic from the scientific point of view: since the vocal tract is made of soft tissue, it does not fossilise. The only things that have been preserved through time are the surrounding bones. The inner parts have to be redesigned. For more than a year Marguerite Humeau has been discussing with palaeontologists, zoologists, veterinarians, engineers, explorers, surgeons, ear and throat specialists, and radiologists. Humeau had to overcome the difficulty of telling history, and prehistory; and also to create a work from non-existent, inaccessible, or lost data. Design, fiction, science, speculations and phantasms serve the project ambition. Advices from experts as well as predictions are used to craft the roars of the new creatures. The epic, as real as fantasised, gives birth to three semi-real roaring creatures: a Mammoth Imperator (-4,5 MYA), an Entelodont aka Terminator Pig (-25 MYA), and an Ambulocetus “Walking whale” (-50MYA).
Photographer: Benjamin Penaguin – Le Studio Humain
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source: margueritehumeau

‘The Opera of Prehistoric Creatures: Installation trailer’ mysteriously announces the three prehistoric creatures rebirth and sound epic.

The video acts as a trailer, introducing a “Design Blockbuster”.

‘Proposal for resuscitating prehistoric creatures’ is an opera which sets up the rebirth of cloned creatures, their wandering and their sound epic. They are seeking to evolve in our contemporary era.
The designer, who became the heroine of a quasi-mystic epic journey, aims at resuscitating the sound of prehistoric creatures by reconstructing their vocal tract. This is problematic from the scientific point of view: since the vocal tract is made of soft tissue, it does not fossilise. The only things that have been preserved through time are the surrounding bones. The inner parts have to be redesigned.
For more than a year Marguerite Humeau has been discussing with palaeontologists, zoologists, veterinarians, engineers, explorers, surgeons, ear and throat specialists, and radiologists.
Humeau had to overcome the difficulty of telling history, and prehistory; and also to create a work from non-existent, inaccessible, or lost data. Design, fiction, science, speculations and phantasms serve the project ambition. Advices from experts as well as predictions are used to craft the roars of the new creatures.
The epic, as real as fantasised, gives birth to three semi-real roaring creatures: a Mammoth Imperator (-4,5 MYA), an Entelodont aka Terminator Pig (-25 MYA), and an Ambulocetus “Walking whale” (-50MYA).
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source: vimeo

Born 1986, France
Lives in London, Works in London and Geneva
Reality is becoming increasingly opaque and could be seen as permanent fiction.

Marguerite Humeau is a designer on a quest to explore contemporary myths: the grey and unknown areas of our reality.

Design is used to explore the means by which knowledge is generated in the absence of evidence, or in the impossibility of either reaching or analysing the object of investigation.

Humeau weaves factual events into speculative narratives, therefore enabling the unknown to erupt in grandiose splendour. The work is presented as a series of live science fictions: semi-real, synthetic, supernatural events.
Marguerite Humeau has presented her work at exhibitions such as Talk to Me (MoMA, New York, 2011, curated by Paola Antonelli), The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things (Hayward Touring, 2013, curated by Mark Leckey), Politique Fiction (Cité du Design, 2013, curated by Alexandra Midal).
It has been recognised internationally through various awards and publications such as TAR, I-D, Blueprint, Monocle, WMMNA, BLDGBLOG, Design Week, NPR, France Culture, Libération, and Le Monde; it is also part of the NY MoMA permanent collection.
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source: 20minutoses
La diseñadora Marguerite Humeau (Francia, 1986) se acerca a la ciencia ficción en un ambicioso proyecto que recrea las voces de criaturas prehistóricas (en este vínculo se puede escuchar un ejemplo del entelodonte) y para el que ha consultado a paleontólogos, veterinarios, radiólogos, ingenieros y expertos en desarrollar las capacidades del lenguaje en robots.
Con creaciones entre escultóricas y mecánicas, ya ha conseguido producir las voces del mamut imperial (que vivió hace 4,5 millones de años), el Ambulocetus (un cetáceo que vivió hace 50 millones de años y que podía desplazarse también por tierra firme), el entelodonte (ancestro del cerdo, que habitó la Tierra en la misma época) y el Australopitecus, basándose en los restos de Lucy, el homínido de 3.2 millones de años que fue clave en la evolución del ser humano actual.
De la laringe a las cuerdas vocales
Para Proposal for resuscitating prehistoric creatures (Propuesta para resucitar criaturas prehistóricas), Humeau reconstruye, a partir de los fósiles existentes, los tejidos blandos que provocan el sonido. En su misión de rediseñar los órganos implicados en el habla —de la laringe a las cuerdas vocales— crea aparatos que clasifica como acercamientos a la “historiografía, la narrativa, el documental, el diseño, la performance y la escultura”.
Le fascinaron los veterinarios que hacían ‘rugir’ a un león muertoUn taller de biología sintética en el que el especialista japonés Hideyuki Sawada construía un robot parlante inspiró a Humeau. La ciencia de producir órganos mediante la impresión de células en 3D y la experiencia de un grupo de veterinarios que introducían aire con un compresor en la garganta de un león muerto terminaron de cautivar a la diseñadora.
Comenzó su largo camino hacia la recreación de sonidos con entrevistas a eminencias como el explorador francés Bernard Buigues —que descubrió tres mamuts congelados e intactos en Siberia— y a especialistas en areas tan precisas como las laringes animales o la vocalización de dinosaurios.
La voz de la “madre de la humanidad”
Califica los sonidos logrados como “asombrosos, sobrecogedores y cautivadores”. Su primera criatura resucitada fue Lucy, el Australopitecus, “la madre de la humanidad”. La voz, con características animales y similar a la de grandes primates como el gorila, se puede escuchar online en la página del MoMa de Nueva York, que tiene la obra de la diseñadora en su colección permanente.
Humeau quiere “llenar los huecos del conocimiento” sobre criaturas extintasEl objetivo de Humeau es recrear datos para “llenar los huecos del conocimiento” sobre criaturas extintas. El espectador, frente a este conjunto anatómico artificial, recibe una experiencia casi sobrenatural, sintética, pero con una base real que lo transporta millones de años atrás.
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source: dezeen
Proposal for Resuscitating Prehistoric Creatures sets up the rebirth of cloned creatures, their wandering and their sound epic. They are seeking to evolve in our contemporary era.
The designer, who became the heroine of a quasi-mystic epic journey, aims to resuscitate the sound of prehistoric creatures by reconstructing their vocal tracts. This is problematic from the scientific point of view: since the vocal tract is made of soft tissue, it does not fossilise. The only things that have been preserved through time are the surrounding bones. The inner parts have to be redesigned.
Humeau had to overcome the difficulty of telling history and prehistory, and also to create a work from non-existent, inaccessible or lost data. Design, fiction, science, speculations and phantasms serve the project ambition. Advice from experts as well as predictions were used to craft the roars of the new creatures. The epic, as real as fantasised, gives birth to three semi-real roaring creatures: a Mammoth Imperator, an Entelodont aka Terminator Pig, and an Ambulocetus “walking whale”.
From the exhibition curator Alexandra Midal:
Marguerite Humeau graduated from the interactive design department of the Royal College of Art in London in 2011. She resurrects the sounds made by prehistoric animals by reconstructing their vocal chords. This task is not easy when you realise that no fossils of these non-bone parts exist. For months, she conducted a dialogue with palaeontologists, zoologists, veterinary experts, engineers, explorers, surgeons, doctors and radiologists. Far from being a backward looking and romantic work, on the contrary she is carried along by the desire to feel the physical presence of these animals from another time.
Designer Marguerite Humeau has reconstructed the vocal tracts of prehistoric creatures to capture the shrieks and grunts they might have made.
Vocal tracts are made from soft tissue so they do not fossilise, meaning that Humeau had to speculate on what the surrounding tissue would have been like by analysing bones from the head, neck and chest areas of fossilised animals.
Scans of elephants, wild boars, dolphins and porpoises – the closest living relatives to the three extinct species Humeau chose to recreate – also helped to map the probable shape of the vocal tracts.
Humeau contacted dozens of experts, including palaeontologists, zoologists, veterinarians, engineers, explorers, surgeons, ear and throat specialists and radiologists, to help her work out the designs.
She produced models of each extinct animal’s likely resonance cavities, larynx, vocal cords and windpipe, and recorded the sounds that each animal might have made.
The first version of the project was presented for her graduation from London’s Royal College of Art last year.
The initial project recreated the sounds of the extinct Imperial Mammoth, and was then expanded to include Ambulocetus, known as the prehistoric ‘walking whale’, and Entelodont, known as the ‘terminator pig’.
The models have now been presented as part of an installation and performance at the Politique Fiction exhibition at Cité du Design in Saint-Étienne, France.
The movie is by Ben Penna and sound is by Association Phonotonic. Photographs are by Felipe Ribon.
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source: designboom
in her multi-year research and design project ‘proposal for resuscitating prehistoric creatures’, french-born, london-based interaction designer marguerite humeau aims to revive the sounds of extinct animals by reconstructing their vocal tracts.
designboom was the first to cover an earlier iteration of the project, ‘back, here below, formidable’. now humeau has created full-scale working sculptures for three animals: ‘entelodont’ (‘hell pig’), the mammoth imperator, and ‘ambulocetus’ (‘walking whale’).
their tracheas are mimicked by a long tube with a specially constructed insert to replicate the larynx. compressed air, calibrated to the proper pressure, is used to stimulated the vocal cords, whose vibration resonates in a large unit designed to serve as the nasal and mouth cavities of the animals.
in ‘proposal for resuscitating prehistoric creatures’, humeau also collaborated with sound artist julien bloit to develop a kind of artificial intelligence system that allows the creatures to ‘evolve’ on their own. ‘the sound’, she explains, ‘becomes the result of an evolutionary process, which will take place during the entire length of the exhibition. back from prehistoric times, [these creatures] are seeking to evolve in our contemporary era.’
composed of soft tissue, the vocal chords of animals do not fossilize; only the surrounding bone is preserved.
humeau’s extrapolation of the form of the windpipes involved extensive research and collaboration with
paleaeontologists,zoologists, veterinarians, engineers, explorers, surgeons, ear and throat specialists, and radiologists.
the process varies for each animal, based on how much data is available and whether the creature has modern relatives.
for mammoth imperator, humeau used CT scans from an asian elephant; for ‘walking whale’ those of modern-day dolphins and harbor porpoises; and for ‘hell pig’ those of the wild boar, all in conjunction with available information from the fossil record and additional data.
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source: creatorsprojectcn

每只动物都有自己独一无二的声音，考古学家往往能利用出土的化石拼凑出绝迹物种的身型样貌，但动物声带的组织器官腐蚀殆尽后，他们的声音也随之从世界上永远消失。一位25岁、来自于英国皇家艺术学院的设计师Marguerite Humeau热衷追踪消逝无踪的生命数据，更把这些数据与重现数万年前地球上的感官原貌结合，这份热诚促使她开始一段艰巨漫长的跨学科领域研究，制作了一项穿越时空的巨大声音雕塑作品，让人们听见始前时代动物的神秘声音。

Humeau去年已经发布过一个代表猛犸象喉咙的声音雕塑品，利用三维打印技术制造出振动声带、气管和喉咙部位结构的模型，再用机器压缩空气，并通过声带模型，以模拟猛犸象发声的方式。今年五月她在法国Cité du Design设计展又增加了两个时代更久远物种的喉咙结构模型，一个是5百万年前的陆行鲸，一个是2百万年前的巨猪。从上面的视频中能感受到，这三个巨大的“喉咙”所发出的古老声音。

Humeau在一段采访中提到，她最初产生这个创作灵感，主要是因为看到日本智能机械工程师Hideyuki Sawada在机器人身上首次安装了模拟人类声带的系统，也从一个TED讲座上了解到三维打印人体器官的前沿技术，加上她向往重现人类无法亲自体验的史前时代，决心联系全世界最具权威的专家来帮她完成这个梦想。最后她真的与超过100多专家接触，包括古生物学家，动物学家，工程师，探险家等进行研究后完成了这项作品。
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source: selectartbr

A designer Marguerite Humeau definiu para si uma missão inusitada. Seus trabalhos tentam trazer de volta à vida a voz de criaturas extintas e são peças pioneiras em um campo em ascensão da área do design denominado Design Especulativo. Exemplo de um encontro genuíno entre arte, ciência e imaginação, são os dispositivos construídos pela artista baseados na estrutura craniana de animais como mastodontes, dinossauros, e até um australopiteco, que simulam os possíveis sons emitidos quando as criaturas andavam pela Terra.

Dispositivo que simula as cordas vocais do austrolopiteco Lucy.

A ideia é extremamente trabalhosa e envolve a colaboração com especialistas porque os pulmões, traqueia, laringe e cordas vocais, boca e nariz dos animais são feitas de tecido mole, e, portanto, não se fossilizam, restando a artista o ato intuitivo de reconstruir o som emitido por essas estruturas estudando a anatomia evolutiva de várias espécies. O primeiro ser extinto a ganhar voz por meio das criações de Humeau foi Lucy, hominídio da espécie Australopithecus Afarensis, que viveu entre 3,85 e 2,95 milhões de anos atrás. A obra hoje faz parte da coleção permanente do MoMA e recebeu vários prêmios internacionais.

Seu trabalho mais recente é o conjunto The Opera of pre-historic creatures e é composta por três bestas pré-históricas. Um animal chamado Ambulocetus, conhecido como baleia andarilha e que viveu a cerca de 48 milhões de anos atrás, um Entelodont, espécie suína de 38 milhões de anos e um Mamute Imperador de 4,5 milhões de anos . Todas as três peças são realizadas em uma escala e posição 1/1 sobre cavaletes na altura de cada animal de origem e para cada um dos crânios, a artista reconstituiu hipoteticamente seus órgãos sonoros que são executados simultaneamente em uma peça musical com três atos.