Silvio Maraini
‘Round Midnight

Exhibition:
August 27 to October 9, 2021

Opening:
Thursday, August 26, 2021, 18.30h
Introduction by Sabine Arlitt, Kunsthistorikerin

Artist Talk:
Saturday, September 11, 2021, 15.00h
Moderated by Sabine Arlitt, Kunsthistorikerin

Finissage:
Saturday, October 9, 2021, 13.00-17.00h

Opening Hours:
Thursday 18.00-20.00h
Friday and Saturday 13.00-17.00h
or by appointment


They live in the immediate vicinity of humans, scream at an unbelievable volume and yet are neither noticed nor heard, even though they have been present in Europe for the past 50 Million years. The bat - a hybrid of bird and mouse, travelling in absolute darkness, camouflaged in the black of night and the carrier of the corona virus. Increasingly, however, they are being persecuted and fought against by humans - this has resulted in a sharp decline in numbers over the last 50 years, and only four of the thirty different species in Switzerland can be classified as not endangered.  Reasons for this include habitat loss, but also insects, which are heavily affected by pollutants in the environment. Thus, bats are also good indicators of an environment that is intact or not. Through drastic measures, some species have been able to recover and one can only hope that these animals will continue to fly silently through the night for many years to come.
In the picture series "'Round Midnight" shows sonagrams of bats in the wild. Instead of using a camera, an ultrasonic microphone was used to record this series. With this technique, the sound waves of the bat's calls are recorded in real time and displayed in a sonogram, which resulted in the possibility to see how the various calls of the bats differ from each other immensely.
It was a mystery how bats orientate themselves. Through research that lasted over acentury,a thesis was finally established.The conclusion being that bats can orientate themselves through sound waves that are emitted. In 1944, not only was this thesis proven, but the musician Thelonius Monk recorded his composition "'Round Midnight". This became the counterpart to the different calls of the bats. However, the series of pictures "'Round Midnight" is an attempt to make the call of the bats, which is inaudible to humans, visually accessible.