Talking Birds
Talking Birds is a Coventry-based company of artists that specialises in acts of transformation. Often these are theatre works and structures which transform the experience of buildings or sites. Other times, they are smaller, more intimate artworks which transform a computer screen, or a telephone call. The company has been working in the UK and abroad since 1992. Its theatre work has toured from Slovakia to Seattle; its film work screens at festivals from Edinburgh to Volgograd; and its web work has active participants from across the globe. It is a Regularly Funded Organisation of ACE West Midlands.
Talking Birds & The Darkroom
The company worked with verbatim theatre specialist Alecky Blythe with a specific content-based agenda. By exploring the world of the submariner, the company was able to experience new forms of text generation, and interrogate its attitude towards editing, storytelling, and the place of the ‘real’ in its performances. Like many valuable experiences, there was something of a depth charge effect as a result of the Darkroom – significance at the time was intuited, but didn’t appear concrete until later when the material generated led to the creation of a big tin whale a few months later. During the week itself, it was as important to switch off our own individual specialisms as it was to experience a different creative catalyst, though one probably follows the other.
