Murmuration

The term murmuration describes a phenomenon of huge groups of starlings that fly and tumble together in a spectacular rolling pattern. The collective appears fluid, pouring and spilling through the sky in undulating waves – a flexible being made up of many. The name murmuration comes from the sound of tens of thousands of wings beating, blended into an audible murmur – an onomatopoeic word referencing a broad range of low, indistinct sounds, from boiling to grumbling, muttering to roaring.[1] Ornithologists don’t know why starlings perform these arial acrobatics but there is speculation that it might confuse predators such as hawks or be an invitation to other starlings to come together to roost – additional bodies adding additional warmth. These are very practical reasonings – but could it simply be the thrill of thousands of individuals collaborating to generate a much larger, singular entity? Another interesting question about murmuration is how individuals perform in such synchronicity. Researchers studying the phenomenon believe that each individual pays attention to seven other birds in its immediate vicinity, matching their positioning and movements.[2] Author Lyanda Lynn Haupt wonders about how starlings perform these seemingly impossible coordinated flight patterns in her book, Mozart’s Starling, siting studies led by theoretical physicist, Giorgio Parisi, who: …found that starling murmurations function in the same way as various natural systems on the cusp of a shift, described by scientists as “critical transitions.” These are systems poised to tip into a sheer transformation, like metals becoming magnetized, liquids turning to gas, or gathered snow in the moment before an avalanche. In such transitional moments, the movement or velocity of one particle affects all the others no matter how many others there are, in what is called a “scale-free correlation.”[3] Can a murmuration – a seemingly joyous collective of individuals that move as one body – model collaboration as a sensory tool with the potential to generate something beyond the capabilities of the individual? A new way of being in which countless bodies weave themselves together yet remain autonomous? Can humans imagine a multidimensional speculative future that includes dreaming with an expanded sensorium, by using a sonic metaphor that cascades into the visual, spatial, temporal? Like the surface tension of water, the starlings’ pattern is held together until a sudden rupture causes them to spill in a new direction. Murmuration is an expansive and fluid network that bridges the individual and the collective. Murmuration (2024) the artwork, is the result of my hands-on process of thinking through what such a fluid, three-dimensional form of togetherness could inspire. The word ‘murmur’ is repeated over and over to form lines of movement, areas of overlap create both depth and erasure. Each word is itself a repetition of three letters, each individually rubber-stamped onto the page. [1] Online Etymology Dictionary accessed April 11, 2024 https://www.etymonline.com/word/murmur [2] Behavioral Ecology Magazine, Vol. 21 Issue 6, Nov. – Dec. 2010 accessed April 16, 2024 https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/21/6/1349/333856?login=false [3] Haupt, Lyanda Lynn. Mozart’s Starling. First Back Bay paperback edition. New York: Back Bay Books: Little, Brown and Company, 2018.