58.10066889887569, 26.556893513707646
88MHz



Silent Spring









About

Silent Spring transforms an Estonian woodland path into a living loudspeaker for the Baltic’s threatened birds. Turning a repurposed NATO hand-crank generator, powers a line of bird boxes, each concealing a salvaged FM radio tuned to a nearby micro-transmitter. As visitors walk, some radios broadcast the birds’ calls exactly as captured on analogue tape, while others layer those voices with delicate microsound textures and atmospheric static. After a few minutes the chorus dies, remaining silent until someone cranks again - making the fragility of both electricity and biodiversity impossible to ignore.
Named for Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring - which warned that unchecked chemicals could leave future springs devoid of birdsong - the installation revives that cautionary message in real time. Each fade-to-silence reminds visitors that today’s ecological losses are no longer hypothetical; they hinge on the energy we choose to invest, or withhold, right now.

Beyond the brief burst of birdsong, Silent Spring positions listening itself as an ecological act. Because every note depends on human effort at the crank, visitors become part of the circuit, confronting how personal energy and collective will are required to keep fragile species-and their stories-alive Silent Spring. 
By rerouting obsolete radios from broadcasting human news to carrying the voices of nature, the work acts simultaneously as a requiem and a warning, reminding us that communication with the non-human world is already breaking up. Finally, its low-impact materials and closed-loop power system model how technology can inhabit a landscape without overriding it, suggesting a path toward artistic and ecological practices that sustain, rather than drain, the environments they occupy.
Location

This installation is featured at Maajaam, a centre for art and technology located in the rural landscape of southern Estonia. 

Presented as part of the Wild Bits exhibition series, the project engages with ecological listening, energy, and media archaeology in the context of forested environments. For more information, visit wildbits.ee and maajaam.ee.

Artists

Iris Voss
Andrew Melchior