The form is a sonic artifact derived from the endangered Red-shanked Carder Bee, one of the UK’s rarest pollinators. Captured in the wildflower-strewn dunes of the Suffolk Sandlings, this hand-recorded audio isolates the deep, resonant hum of a solitary worker bee as it moved across a patch of kidney vetch and red clover.

The Red-shanked Carder Bee is identifiable by its velvet-black body and subtle red hairs on its hind legs—a detail mirrored in the tonal architecture of this Voice Gem. Its sound, often overlooked by the human ear, was extracted using a hyper-directional microphone system designed to reveal the intimate sonic signature of the bee’s flight and foraging.

This piece exists as a digital fossil: a data-sculpted relic of a species whose sound may soon fall silent in nature.

This piece stands as part of a growing archive that gives voice to vanishing species—where data becomes memorial, and sound becomes monument.