The Maeid collective critically examines new technologies in novel human-animal-machine relationships. The installation – which could also function as an indoor habitat for bats, due to the regulated temperature and humidity of the room – seeks to explore the deeper meaning of mutualistic relationships and non-verbal communication between humans and bats through the study, translation and manipulation of the bat’s echolocation, juxtaposing the animals’ gaze and the human gaze.

Nectar-feeding bats are capable of adapting to particular situations as they have a unique system of sensory compensation, which allows them to find flowers by simultaneously using multiple senses (vision, smell and sonar) to understand the environment. They can recognise the geometry of a single flower by generating ‘echo-fingerprints’. The installation translates these fingerprints into audible frequencies and visual, sensory patterns comprehensible to human senses to help us recognise the complexity of understanding that exists beyond human-human interactions.

The artwork also reflects on how digital technologies, machine intelligence and the development of technical devices based on sonar systems found in nature can alter human senses and enhance new forms of communication. Biosonar-inspired technologies are currently advancing crucial applications of radar and computer vision devices, such as self-driving cars and sonar biomedical ultrasound imaging. As sound propagates across different media, sonar remains the best technology for interpreting special environmental circumstances.

The artwork lets the human and the non-human ‘collide’ where the meta-domain of a new language is being formed. This topological shift foreshadows a possible future in which the clear borders of humans and other species are blurred. The project expresses our deep desire to recognise the aesthetic dimension of the non-human and at the same time sensitise ourselves to this richer and larger world made of sounds and impulses.

(Borbála Szalai)