Allora & Calzadilla's 'The Great Silence' Debuts in Mono-Channel at Quartz Studio

The video work 'The Great Silence' (2014) by the artist duo Allora & Calzadilla is presented for the first time in a mono-channel version at Quartz Studio in Turin, Italy, until January 7, 2017. The piece features a parrot as narrator, with text written by science fiction author Ted Chiang. The video alternates natural and artificial settings, animal sounds, technological noises, and cosmic silence, exploring human relationships with other species, both animal and extraterrestrial. The inspiration comes from the Arecibo Observatory in Esperanza, Puerto Rico, home to the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope, which transmits and receives radio waves from the far reaches of the universe. The area is also the last wild habitat of the endangered Puerto Rican parrot Amazona vittata. Drawing on the fable, the parrot comments on humanity's search for extraterrestrial life, using the concept of vocal learning—common to parrots, humans, and few other species—as a reflection on acousmatic voices and vibrations underlying language and the universe. Chiang's text was selected for the anthologies 'Best American Science Fiction 2016' and 'Best American Short Stories 2016'.