Part of Light Night Leeds, an annual free multi-arts and light festival, Faint Signals is a British Library commission with Yorkshire-based interactive arts studio Invisible Flock.

Experience Faint Signals

About Faint Signals

Using sounds from wildlife, weather and nature from our own extraordinary collection, Faint Signals is a digital experience that reflects the diversity and complexity of Yorkshire’s natural world. Using just your keyboard arrow keys move through the landscape yourself.

Scroll over the landscape and unlock a rich variety of different sounds. Learn more about them through a simple narrative as you playfully bring to life a vivid and complex ecosystem.

While the forest is imagined, the flora, fauna and wildlife you will discover is all scientifically accurate and native to Yorkshire – though some of it is now sadly extinct. There are thousands of combinations to explore so you’ll never have the same experience twice.

The pandemic has slowed transport and industry and given some landscapes an unprecedented absence of human contact. We’ve seen sea eagles return to the Yorkshire Moors and deer taking over corners of East London. And, for the first time in many years, city-dwellers have heard birdsong all day long.

As we contemplate how we live in a world impacted so much by COVID-19, Faint Signals considers our relationship with shared spaces and the natural world, as well as with sound, and how human impact has changed this over time.

Faint Signals is a British Library commission with Yorkshire-based interactive arts studio Invisible Flock. This digital work looks at how, over 50 years, natural sound has changed and highlights the sounds we’ve lost. Launching on 10 November 2020 to mark World Science Day, it highlights the significant role of science in society and the need to engage the wider public in debates on emerging scientific issues. 

Part of Light Night Leeds, an annual free multi-arts and light festival, Faint Signals is part of our growing culture and learning programme in and around Leeds, where we have had a presence for over 50 years at Boston Spa. 

Invisible Flock

Invisible Flock are an award-winning interactive arts studio based at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park operating at the intersection of art and technology. They create highly sensory installations and environments asking us to renegotiate our emotional relationship to the natural world. Their aim is to open up critically important ways of thinking about how we live, how we connect and share to live better together in a global society.

NB Faint Signals is available through modern browsers (such as Chrome or Firefox) but is not currently optimised for mobile devices.

Please take a couple of minutes to tell us what you thought about Faint Signals. 

If you would like to find out more about the audio recordings used in Faint Signals you can download a full list (PDF Format).