Fossils tell silent stories, frozen in stone for millions of years. They made it possible to reconstruct the pace of the dinosaurs, their movements and even certain social behaviors. However, a whole part of their existence remains elusive. Their sounds. It is this silence that researchers and artists seek today to fill, by exploring the sound of dinosaurs as a scientific and creative material.
It is in this context that Dinosaur Choir was born (the “Dinosaurs Choir”), a work on the border of art, science and technology. The project was imagined by Courtney Brown, sound artist and researcher at the Southern Methodist University in Texas. To transform a paleontological hypothesis into auditory experience, she collaborated with Cezern Gajewski, an industrial designer at the University of Alberta. Together, they designed a first instrument inspired by a Corypyosaurus, a herbivore dinosaur with a peak of the upper Cretaceous. Thanks to scanners of fossilized skulls, they were able to model the complex nasal cavities in 3D which would have been used for sound production.
When the sound of dinosaurs becomes a sensory experience
The sound is produced by blowing in a device that imitates the larynx of the animal. It then circulates through a replica of the 3D printed skull. However, this approach goes far beyond sound imitation. It is also based on recent biological data concerning the vocal system of dinosaurs. According to the project scientific team, the sounds obtained reflect the probable anatomy of the respiratory system at the time. Corypyosaurus, for example, could have produced serious sounds, close to an alert cry or a parade call.
Relayed by Sciencealerlet, the project stages an unprecedented interaction between human and fossil. The musician's breath becomes that of dinosaur. A camera and a microphone detect vibrations and mouth movements, modulating the stamp in real time. The public is not content to listen to a reconstruction, he himself becomes a vector of prehistoric sound. The effect is disturbing, almost hypnotic. He plunges participants into a tactile and emotional relationship in the past.
Towards a new form of mediation between science and public
Dinosaur Choir is not limited to isolated artistic performance. Its ambition is to constitute a set of fossil voices, a real dinosaurs choir accessible to the public. The previous project, “Rawr! A Study in Sonic Skulls”, had laid the basics by giving sound form to the skull of a juvenile cor up. Today, the objective is to expand the spectrum by integrating other species such as ankylosaur, recently identified as having a larynx close to that of birds.
This approach is based on bioacoustic research carried out by scientists like Riccardo Zaccarelli and Coen Elemans. The sound models used were adapted from vocalizations of modern birds, then recalibrated according to the fossil dimensions of the dinosaurs. This hybridization between biology, computer science and music leads to a plausible restitution of the noise of dinosaurs, halfway between simulation and creation.
By reconciling the tangible of fossils and the intangible of sound, Dinosaur Choir inaugurates a new way of transmitting knowledge. It is no longer just a question of explaining the past, but of embodying it through the body and the senses. An approach that could transform our way of teaching paleontology, while giving science a new breath.
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