Björk’s New Species-Saving Project Has a Few Critics

When we last checked in on Björk, she was raising awareness on the environmental impacts of her country’s salmon farms. This week Iceland’s most famous singer announced her “Immersive Auditory Experience,” an art installation to open this month in France, intended to sound the alarm on biodiversity loss and the collapse of ecosystems.

“Using AI software, this immersive sound piece gives endangered and extinct animals a voice by merging their sounds with our words,” the artist announced on X. She also posted a clip of the installation, developed with boyfriend Aleph Molinari, in which she lays out the stakes: “It is an emergency. The apocalypse has already happened, and how we will act now is essential.”

The announcement was not universally well-received, even from her fans. “girl i love the vision and it looks beautiful,” @areallybigworm replied on X. “but from my understanding large scale AI projects currently can have a detrimental effect on the environment and that seems in conflict with the message.”

@areallybigworm has a point. AI servers generate a lot of electronic waste, consume ridiculous quantities of water, require a lot of electricity, and rely on minerals and rare elements (which are often mined unsustainably).

All that may be true, but the video runs only three minutes and 40 seconds, so whatever impacts it may have generated in production aren’t the end of the world, so to speak. And if Björk can inspire a few people to act, they are  resources well spent. Anyway it might be worth it, just to hear the sounds of extinct animals.

Björk’s installation, part of the museum’s “Biodiversity: Which culture for which future?” exhibition, will be at Paris’s Centre Pompidou from November 20 to December 9.

Photo credit: Viðar Logi via X