Listen to the bats, and you may begin to hear your city differently. Every day at dusk, Geelong’s flying foxes remind us that the warming climate not only threatens us, it also connects us.
Living in a city, it is easy to lose touch with the rhythms of the living world. Electric light replaces dusk. Walls soften heat and cold. Seasons pass quietly in the background. The 23-minute audio artwork ‘Bats and Being’ invites listeners to slow down and listen again.
This audio artwork emerges from Mik Aidt’s personal relationship with Geelong’s grey-headed flying foxes, who roost in Eastern Park and pass overhead each evening at dusk. Through field recordings, music, spoken reflections and fragments from a guided walk with researchers, the work traces a gradual approach – from city noise to shared presence.
The piece was shaped during an extreme heatwave, when temperatures became life-threatening for both humans and bats. Rather than offering comfort or escape, the work holds space for empathy, unease and attention. It asks what it means to live alongside other species in a changing climate – and what kind of care belonging might require.
Listening does not demand stillness. You can carry this work with you, letting it unfold while moving through the city. Like the bats themselves, it follows a rhythm older than the streetlights.
In this interview 63-year-old journalist and musician Mik Aidt explains about his ideas and intentions with his new 23-minute audio artwork ‘Bats and Being’, soon to become part of the exhibition ‘Bats & Belonging’ which opens on 5 February 2026 in Geelong.
Photos and text by Adam Cardilini
You are best known in Geelong for radio, writing and climate communication. This exhibition marks your debut here as an audio artist. How did you arrive at sound as an art form, and why now?
Last year, 2025, was a special year for me. After more than a decade of campaigning for climate action through radio, writing and public conversation, I made a conscious decision – a New Years resolution – in January to take music seriously as another way of communicating about climate and sustainability.
I set myself a slightly mad challenge: to create 52 songs – one every week of the year – where I’d be mixing excerpts from radio interviews in our long-running climate radio show The Sustainabe Hour with music, singing, lyrics and short poetic fragments.
What that year taught me was something quite profound: when you move away from facts and figures and persuasion, and instead work with sound, emotion and rhythm, people receive the message differently, more openly. Sound has a way of bypassing the part of us that wants to argue, and instead touching something more attentive.
So when I saw the call-out for an exhibition called ‘Bats & Belonging’, something clicked immediately. I thought: this fits perfectly with the path I’m already on, using art and sound to communicate care, relationship and vulnerability rather than instruction.
At first, though, I struggled to work out what my contribution would actually be. What should it be about? I had the impulse, but not yet the ‘story’ of the piece. Then, only a few days before the submission deadline, a heatwave hit. 41°C degrees in Geelong.
That was the moment it fell into place.
I live very close to the park where the bats roost, and every evening they pass over my garden. It has become a kind of personal ritual to sit at dusk time and wait for them, knowing that soon hundreds – sometimes many hundres – of bats will stream overhead.
In the weeks leading up to the exhibition deadline, I also began visiting the bats during the day. I’d extend my dog walks and wander over to where they hang upside down in the trees. We’d stand there quietly, just listening. There’s always something different going on. Sometimes they are restless and vocal, other times calm and still.
But on that particular hot day, it was unmistakable: the bats were in distress. When I came home that night, I knew. This was the story for my piece. A very real, very peaceful and loving local relationship, and the way extreme heat, driven by a changing climate, is putting unbearable pressure on this community of animals living right alongside us. That is where my audio work began.
Can you describe the first time you really noticed the bats, not just saw them, but noticed them?
I have lived in East Geelong, close to Eastern Park, for about five years now. And I think most neighbourhoods develop a relationship with nature in one way or another. If you live near the sea, it might be the sound of seagulls. If you live near a river, it might be a particular kind of birdlife. In East Geelong, what is really distinctive is what happens every evening, especially in summer: around dusk – that moment when the sun has just set and the first stars begin to appear – the bats start moving. They leave their roosting place in Eastern Park and fly west, over the hill towards Belmont, heading out to forage for food.
And it is not just one or two. It is hundreds. They keep coming, flying quite low, so if you are sitting in your garden, they pass close enough that you really feel their presence. Suddenly, you are not just near nature – you are inside it.
A lot of people think of bats as scary animals. But these bats are different. They don’t make noise as they fly. Their wings are huge, and because of that they move slowly, like large birds gliding rather than darting. There is something very calm about it. Majestic, even.
However, for me, the moment I truly noticed them was when this exhibition ‘Bats & Belonging’ had been announced. I started perceiving them as my neighbours. A nightly reminder that our suburb isn’t just a human suburb, but part of a shared living system.
Grey-headed flying foxes often trigger fear or discomfort in cities. Did you have any assumptions or unease yourself at the beginning, and if so, what changed? Has your perception of the bats changed?
In the first few years, I don’t think I had any particular relationship with the bats at all. They flew over the garden at dusk and I’d think, yeah, that’s nice. It was interesting, but distant.
What really changed things was a guided nature walk organised in connection with this exhibition. Back in November, about 30 of us gathered and walked over to where the bats roost, listening to people who research their lives and living conditions. Hearing scientists speak so passionately – and so precisely – about these animals completely shifted my understanding of who these little creature are.
One detail especially stayed with me: the fact that each mother bat has a distinct call for her baby, and that the babies recognise that call among thousands of others. In other words, they are speaking to one another in a language that is specific, relational, and deeply attentive.
They are called ‘flying foxes’, in Danish we call them ‘flying dogs’, and they do resemble dogs a little. I have a dog myself, and we share a constant, non-verbal communication – a mutual understanding that doesn’t rely on human words. Realising that flying foxes relate to one another in a similarly intimate way suddenly brought them much closer to me. They were no longer abstract animals in the sky, or creatures from vampyre horror films associated with death, darkness and fear. They became gentle, social beings who care for one another.
And once you recognise that, it becomes impossible not to feel a responsibility towards them.
What is it like to witness the bats’ nightly movement, and what does it do to your sense of time and place?
Living in a city, and in the modern Western world more broadly, it is surprisingly easy to become disconnected from nature. If it is dark outside, we turn the lights on. If the weather is harsh, we close the door, or sit in our cars. If we live in an apartment, the seasons can pass almost unnoticed.
And yet, we live in a time when it has never been more important to feel connected to life on Earth – and to understand that we depend on it being in balance.
For me, maintaining a healthy, caring relationship with nature is about staying in touch with those realities. It is one reason I prioritise walking or cycling, because I feel the weather. You feel the cold, the heat, the wind, the rain. You are exposed to the world as it actually is.
What I discored is that the bats offer something similar. When they come over the garden each evening, they mark time in a way that no clock does: dusk has arrived, the first stars appear, the light changes, and ‘dooong’: the bats start moving – as they have done for hundreds of thousands of years, since ‘deep time’ on this planet.
Watching them gives me a sense of rhythm that feels ancient. Primeval. Like watching the full moon rising does. And there is something deeply calming about that. A reminder that we are part of something much larger than ourselves. A circular movement of life that continues day after day, regardless of our moods, our worries, or what is in our bank accounts.
How did you shape the sound piece, and what kind of listening experience were you aiming for?
In the sound art piece, which I have titled ‘Bats and Being’, I mix different layers of sound recorded in and around the area where the flying foxes live. Some of these are direct environmental recordings. Others come from a very specific experience: the guided walk we took to the bats’ roosting site in November 2025.
That walk was introduced by a sustainability researcher from Deakin University, Dr Belinda Christie, who gave a deeply grounding introduction – an invitation to slow down, to notice, and to approach the bats with care.
We walked slowly for about a kilometre, from a car park to the roosting site, where the bats hang upside down in a small number of trees, clustered together as a colony. I recorded the introduction, and I recorded the walk itself. My intention was to gently work on the listener’s emotions using music, while also anchoring the piece in something real: an experience I had, and one I wanted to share with people who couldn’t be there at the time.
That is why the piece doesn’t rush. Along the way, you hear cars in the distance, birds, insects, even mosquitoes, which were very much present that day. All of it is intentional. It is a way of tuning the listener into a different state of mind. By the time you reach the bats, you have already slowed down. Your ears are open, you are listening.
How did the extreme heat shape the final work?
I had deliberately blocked out the last weekend before the submission deadline to create the piece. What I hadn’t planned for was the heat.
Friday was a 41°C day. Saturday was still brutally hot. And in that heat, the focus of the work became unmistakably clear. So this piece is about climate change. ‘Climate’ as something very real and physical.
When temperatures rise above normal body temperature of 37°C degrees and humidity is high, the human body can no longer cool itself, and the exposure becomes life-threatening. This is called ‘Lethal humidity’. And there I was, sitting with sweat pouring down my skin, thinking: this is not a good time to be a bat. Because unlike us, the bats are hanging exposed in trees, unable to escape the heat.
That fear – and that empathy – entered the work. It is not always pleasant to listen to. But that discomfort is intentional. This is not pop music. It is an audio artwork. And for me, that means conveying emotional truth.
How is this different from ambient nature audio?
There are countless hours of nature recordings online designed to relax us, help us sleep, or create a sense of calm. They have their place. But ‘Bats and Being’ is not meant to soothe. It is meant to signal that something is wrong. We have just experienced a summer of record-breaking temperatures across Australia. Often this is framed as “the weather”. But it is not the weather. It is climate change, climate breakdown – and it is driven by how we produce energy, how we cut down our trees. By how much carbon we continue to release into the atmosphere.
This piece is shaped to invite reflection, conversation and compassion, including compassion for the difficult work of transition. Moving towards clean energy, electrifying our homes, changing how we move and live. That transition can improve lives: cleaner air, lower bills, healthier communities. But powerful interests are invested in delaying it, and misinformation plays a role in that delay. This work doesn’t ask you to relax about it. It asks you to feel.
23 minutes is a long time to ask of a listener. Who is this for? – and what does belonging mean to you?
23 minutes is a long time if this were a pop song. But hey, this is an audio artwork. Listening doesn’t have to mean sitting still. You can listen while driving, walking, sitting on a bus or train. Time is passing anyway.
My hope is that those 23 minutes offer something unexpected. A shift in attention. A few afterthoughts. Perhaps curiosity about the bats, the exhibition, or the place we live.
Belonging, for me, comes from connection. Connection with each other, but also with place, weather, animals, and the living systems around us.
These bats aren’t visitors. They are part of our city. In a very real sense, they are fellow citizens. This project has given me a deep sense of warmth about Geelong, about recognising these amazing animals as neighbours. About standing quietly near them, not sharing language, but sharing presence.
That is why I called the piece ‘Bats and Being’. It is about vulnerability – theirs and ours. We all get a limited time on this planet. So perhaps the question is how we choose to live while we are here. Whether we act with care, decency and responsibility towards the life around us. That, to me, is what belonging really means.
Bats & Belonging – Exhibition details
‘Bats & Belonging’ brings together artists responding to Geelong’s grey-headed flying foxes and the shared question of what it means to live well together – human and non-human alike.
The exhibition runs from Thursday 5 February to Saturday 21 February 2026, with a special opening event on Saturday 7 February, 1:30–3:30pm.
Opening hours: Thursday 11am–6pm; Friday & Saturday 11am–4pm.
Location: Untether Gallery, in the arcade across from Market Square, 5/132 Little Malop Street, Geelong.
More information on www.untethergallery.com.au