A remote live performance by Zoox presented on 2 July 2020 as part of Art and the Rural Imagination conference.
LISTEN HERE AN ADAPTED RECORDING OF THE PERFORMANCE:
The last known colony of the Common Tree Frog (Hyla Arborea) in the British wild was found at Hilltop Pond, near Beaulieu, New Forest. It once thrived and frog song was reported to be heard frequently by locals for decades. By the late 1980s the pond fell silent, and the very last male specimen was spotted far away from its original site in 1988, calling a lonely ‘Brekekekéx koáx koáx!’ for a non-existent female. The colony was made extinct largely due to humans collecting the frogs as colourful pets. Previously the Common Tree Frog was considered a ‘non-native’ or ‘alien’ species within the UK, but the inability to trace the origins of this particular colony has led scientists to consider that the frog may indeed be native. Local folklore had it that an intriguingly named Mr Turner Turner, a wealthy villager who made his money in casinos, had brought the frogs back from his travels in Africa and Monte Carlo. However, the frogs were not found in the areas he visited.
‘Brekekekéx koáx koáx!’ is a new work performed by a local singer, a song that could act as a futile, ritualistic attempt to resurrect the extinct (in the British wild) species. The lyrics to ‘Bryd one Brere’ (said to be the oldest surviving secular love song in the English language) have been rewritten using astrological predictions for 1988, the year the last male was sighted, as an attempt to retroactively foresee the extinction.
- Georgie Brinkman and Alex Wight work under the moniker ZOOX. “Through our collaborative projects we examine how human interventian in, and perception of, organic environments has been reframed by mediated, technological experiences. We explore this notion through diverse research avenues, notably in relation to species extinction, animism, colonialism, climate change, symbiosis, anthropomorphism, endemism, biomimicry, folklore and mythology. Our work is characterised by working with other practitioners, such as musicians, ornithologists and botanists. Alongside their collective work, Georgie runs a London-based residency program, The New Flesh, that explores the intersection of costume and moving image.
TOP IMAGE: Zoox research image. Still from "We All Stand Together” by Paul McCartney & The Frog Chorus.
