Chirp & Drift will be streamed from THIS page, OCM's Facebook page and the Chirp & Drift website.

Online Showing times: 20th-22nd November

Interactive live stream times: Friday 20th and Saturday 21st November, 4.30pm – 8pm

This new online, interactive edition of Chirp & Drift has been created by Kathy Hinde specially for Blackbird Leys and Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival 2020.

Tune into an interactive digital experience of a flock of moving, glowing musical sculptures that perform a dusk-time chorus. The morse code chatter of these bird-like instruments will be generated from the bird-themed street names of Blackbird Leys, and real-time Tweets from you, the viewing audience.

Gentle tones and harmonies are made by accordion reeds hidden within each ‘bird’. As they move, air is pressed through the reeds, reminding the listener of the delicate and fragile state of the environment and our own health.

Films of Chirp & Drift performing the bird names from Blackbird Leys can be enjoyed online for the duration of the festival.

Tweet Your Street

You can interact live with the installation by tweeting about one of the featured birds. Chirp & Drift will play the musical video of your chosen bird, along with your tweet. Use the hashtag #ChirpDriftOxford and a bird name from Blackbird Leys or Greater Leys streets. See the interactive time slots above. The street names featured are: Blackbird Leys Road, Kestrel Crescent, Merlin Road, Peregrine Road, Brambling Way, Linnet Close, Mallard Close, Falcon Close, Skylark Place, Robin Place, Hobby Court, Sparrow Way, Fieldfare Road, Tern Walk, Plover Drive, Warbler Walk, Nightingale Avenue, Dunnock Way, Greenfinch Close, Kingfisher Green, Pochard Place, Swallow Close, Partridge Walk, Pipit Close, Teal Close, Swift Close, Grebe Close, Chaffinch Walk, Nuthatch Close, and Moorhen Walk.

Make your own origami bird

So that we can all celebrate birds and acknowledge their plight in global extinction crisis, Kathy has created a special video so that we can all make our own origami bird:

If you live in Blackbird Leys, we invite you to enhance Chirp & Drift by hanging your origami birds in your windows during the Christmas Light Festival and Tweet a photo of your bird to join others in an online montage using the hashtag #ChirpDriftOxford.

Chirp & Drift is created by Kathy Hinde and presented by OCM.

With bespoke software programmed by Matthew Olden.

Commissioned by Lancaster Arts and Light up Lancaster 2018.

In partnership with St George's Bristol.

OCM is supported using public funding by Arts Council England and supported with funding from Oxford City Council. OCM gratefully acknowledges support from PRS Foundation as a Talent Development Partner in association with Youth Music. OCM is an affiliate organisation of Oxford Brookes University.