Visitors can hear Björk’s immersive, otherworldly soundscape, Nature Manifesto, over the next few weeks as they climb the long, glass escalator that hugs the side of Centre Pompidou in Paris, France.

Björk is not only an Icelandic pop star, but also an avant-garde artist and climate activist. Her new sound installation blends the noises of endangered and extinct animals with her own voice, reading text she co-wrote alongside editor and photographer Aleph Molinari.

“It is an emergency. The apocalypse has already happened. And how we will act now is essential,” Björk recites over an array of ear-tingling wildlife noises that are sometimes natural, sometimes otherworldly. “In a pioneering sound strata of mutant peacocks, bees, and lemurs, biology will reassemble in new ways.”

A journey through different sonic worlds

Created with IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), a preeminent music and sound research institute based in Paris, the installation employs field recordings of animal sounds. Some of these were manipulated using artificial intelligence.

“As you go up the escalator, you go through all these different sonic worlds,” said IRCAM sound artist Robin Meier Wiratunga, who collaborated with Björk on the installation. “We have orangutans, mosquitoes, beluga whales, and then when you reach the top floor, the climactic musical event, which we lovingly call the ‘Dolphin Disco.’” 

Some creatures whose vocalizations appear in Nature Manifesto, such as the Hawaiian crow, cannot be heard in the wild anymore. The creative team grabbed this bird’s call from an archive of extinct animals.

“This immersive sound piece gives endangered and extinct animals a voice by merging their sounds with our words, handing them the microphone,” Björk said in a statement shared with NPR. “We wanted to share their presence in an architecture representing the industrial age, far away from nature. We wanted to remind citizens of the raw vitality of endangered creatures.”

Capturing the sounds of lost species

We don’t know for sure what sounds many extinct animals made. University of Texas paleontologist Julia Clarke, who studies the sounds of extinct animals, said we can glean clues by studying sound-making in living species and the preserved soft tissues, skeletons and fossils of extinct ones.

“We might look at the sound-producing structures, like vibratory vocal cords,” Clarke said. “We might look at the structures that are rubbed together or banged together.”

Up to one million plant and animal species are facing extinction due to human activity including climate change, pollution and habitat loss, according to a 2019 global report on biodiversity.

“What we’ve noticed in mass extinction is really the absence of sound,” Clarke said.

But she added that Nature Manifesto isn’t only highlighting this catastrophic loss. It also suggests if we stop destroying the planet, that species might continue to evolve.

“It’s challenging us to think about in visceral ways what a very different and very acoustically diverse future might sound like,” she said. “I hope it is that acoustically diverse.”

Björk and Aleph Molinari collaborated on Nature Manifesto at Centre Pompidou in Paris.

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Björk the climate activist

Björk’s passion for environmental stewardship runs deep. Some of her albums touch upon the natural world and its complex relationship to technology, such as Biophilia (2011) and Fossora (2022). She also advocates strongly for ecological causes, including her ongoing fight against intensive fish farming in her native Iceland. A recently discovered butterfly species — Pterourus bjorkae — was recently named in her honor.

The singer, visual artist and activist Anohni, who is exhibiting a companion video piece alongside Nature Manifesto at Centre Pompidou, said she and Björk often talk about climate issues.

“We’ve spoken a lot about environment over the years, just as artists between each other, trying to understand our right-size relationship to this unfolding crisis and the different ways that we might utilize our agency as artists,” she said. “She’s always been such a profound and moving optimist.”

Jennifer Vanasco edited the broadcast and digital versions of this story. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio.

NEW YORK — Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of “Wheel of Fortune,” “Love Connection” and “Scrabble” who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, has died. He was 83.

Mark Young, Woolery’s podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. “Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him,” Young wrote.

Woolery, with his matinee idol looks, coiffed hair and ease with witty banter, was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.

In 1983, Woolery began an 11-year run as host of TV’s “Love Connection,” for which he coined the phrase, “We’ll be back in two minutes and two seconds,” a two-fingered signature dubbed the “2 and 2.” In 1984, he hosted TV’s “Scrabble,” simultaneously hosting two game shows on TV until 1990.

“Love Connection,” which aired long before the dawn of dating apps, had a premise that featured either a single man or single woman who would watch audition tapes of three potential mates and then pick one for a date.

A couple of weeks after the date, the guest would sit with Woolery in front of a studio audience and tell everybody about the date. The audience would vote on the three contestants, and if the audience agreed with the guest’s choice, “Love Connection” would offer to pay for a second date.

Woolery told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2003 that his favorite set of lovebirds was a man aged 91 and a woman aged 87. “She had so much eye makeup on, she looked like a stolen Corvette. He was so old he said, ‘I remember wagon trains.’ The poor guy. She took him on a balloon ride.”

Other career highlights included hosting the shows “Lingo,” “Greed” and “The Chuck Woolery Show,” as well as hosting the short-lived syndicated revival of “The Dating Game” from 1998 to 2000 and an ill-fated 1991 talk show. In 1992, he played himself in two episodes of TV’s “Melrose Place.”

Woolery became the subject of the Game Show Network’s first attempt at a reality show, “Chuck Woolery: Naturally Stoned,” which premiered in 2003. It shared the title of the pop song in 1968 by Woolery and his rock group, the Avant-Garde. It lasted six episode and was panned by critics.

Woolery began his TV career at a show that has become a mainstay. Although most associated with Pat Sajak and Vanna White, “Wheel of Fortune” debuted Jan. 6, 1975, on NBC with Woolery welcoming contestants and the audience. Woolery, then 33, was trying to make it in Nashville as a singer.

“Wheel of Fortune” started life as “Shopper’s Bazaar,” incorporating Hangman-style puzzles and a roulette wheel. After Woolery appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show” singing “Delta Dawn,” Merv Griffin asked him to host the new show with Susan Stafford.

“I had an interview that stretched to 15, 20 minutes,” Woolery told The New York Times in 2003. “After the show, when Merv asked if I wanted to do a game show, I thought, ‘Great, a guy with a bad jacket and an equally bad mustache who doesn’t care what you have to say — that’s the guy I want to be.’”

NBC initially passed, but they retooled it as “Wheel of Fortune” and got the green light. After a few years, Woolery demanded a raise to $500,000 a year, or what host Peter Marshall was making on “Hollywood Squares.” Griffin balked and replaced Woolery with weather reporter Pat Sajak.

“Both Chuck and Susie did a fine job, and ‘Wheel’ did well enough on NBC, although it never approached the kind of ratings success that ‘Jeopardy!’ achieved in its heyday,” Griffin said in “Merv: Making the Good Life Last,” an autobiography from the 2000s co-written by David Bender. Woolery earned an Emmy nod as host.

Born in Ashland, Kentucky, Woolery served in the U.S. Navy before attending college. He played double bass in a folk trio, then formed the psychedelic rock duo The Avant-Garde in 1967 while working as a truck driver to support himself as a musician.

The Avant-Garde, which tourbed in a refitted Cadillac hearse, had the Top 40 hit “Naturally Stoned,” with Woolery singing, “When I put my mind on you alone/I can get a good sensation/Feel like I’m naturally stoned.”

After The Avant-Garde broke up, Woolery released his debut solo single “I’ve Been Wrong” in 1969 and several more singles with Columbia before transitioning to country music by the 1970s. He released two solo singles, “Forgive My Heart” and “Love Me, Love Me.”

Woolery wrote or co-wrote songs for himself and everyone from Pat Boone to Tammy Wynette. On Wynette’s 1971 album “We Sure Can Love Each Other,” Woolery wrote “The Joys of Being a Woman” with lyrics including “See our baby on the swing/Hear her laugh, hear her scream.”

After his TV career ended, Woolery went into podcasting. In an interview with The New York Times, he called himself a gun-rights activist and described himself as a conservative libertarian and constitutionalist. He said he hadn’t revealed his politics in liberal Hollywood for fear of retribution.

He teamed up with Mark Young in 2014 for the podcast “Blunt Force Truth” and soon became a full supporter of Donald Trump while arguing minorities don’t need civil rights and causing a firestorm by tweeting an antisemitic comment linking Soviet Communists to Judaism.

“President Obama’s popularity is a fantasy only held by him and his dwindling legion of juice-box-drinking, anxiety-dog-hugging, safe-space-hiding snowflakes,” he said.

Woolery also was active online, retweeting articles from Conservative Brief, insisting Democrats were trying to install a system of Marxism and spreading headlines such as “Impeach him! Devastating photo of Joe Biden leaks.”

During the early stages of the pandemic, Woolery initially accused medical professionals and Democrats of lying about the virus in an effort to hurt the economy and Trump’s chances for reelection to the presidency.

“The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, media, Democrats, our doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it,” Woolery wrote in July 2020.

Trump retweeted that post to his 83 million followers. By the end of the month, nearly 4.5 million Americans had been infected with COVID-19 and more than 150,000 had died.

Just days later, Woolery changed his stance, announcing his son had contracted COVID-19. “To further clarify and add perspective, COVID-19 is real and it is here. My son tested positive for the virus, and I feel for of those suffering and especially for those who have lost loved ones,” Woolery posted before his account was deleted.

Woolery later explained on his podcast that he never called COVID-19 “a hoax” or said “it’s not real,” just that “we’ve been lied to.” Woolery also said it was “an honor to have your president retweet what your thoughts are and think it’s important enough to do that.”

In addition to his wife, Woolery is survived by his sons Michael and Sean and his daughter Melissa, Young said.