Alarming Birds

Deep in the jungles of Trinidad, artist Nina Katchadourian mistook a singing bird for a car alarm. On her return home to New York City, Katchadourian decided to fabricate the inverse of her jungle experience with a couple of car stereos and microprocessor chips. She has outfitted several cars with 'Natural Car Alarms' that migrate throughout Manhattan this summer. When triggered, Katchadourian's car alarms play birdcalls in the six-tone mechanized sound pattern of a typical car alarm. The sounds, provided by Cornell University's Macauley Library of Natural Sounds, feature the Three-Wattled Bellbird, the Northern Bobwhite, and the rare Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Keep track of the tweeting online, or sign up to buy your own birdcalling car alarm.