Abradee: turning bird photographs into a musical system

The official LIONS entry credits Africa Creative, São Paulo, and Abradee with Searching for Birds on Wires, a 2026 Gold winner in Audio & Radio.^[1] In a June 22 interview, creative director Aaron Sutton described expanding Jarbas Agnelli’s earlier single-photograph musical idea into a larger composition.^[2] The verified result here is a creative award; the reviewed sources do not establish sales growth or improved public attitudes.

Agnelli said he received around 700 images and selected about 60. Different photographs supplied parts for instruments such as clarinet, oboe and flute; he then composed their relationship into a single work.^[2] These are approximate production counts attributed to the composer, not a verified number of participants. The transformation required selection and composition, not merely collecting more photographs.

A separate report describes 10,000 photographs.^[3] The reviewed material does not explain how that total relates to the roughly 700 images the composer said he received.^[2] We therefore do not combine them or use either as an audited campaign participation total. Nor does an award demonstrate audience reach, brand recall or the environmental safety of power lines. Those questions require different evidence.

Analysis & application

The transferable mechanism is to give many inputs one intelligible transformation rule, then curate their relationships. A photograph supplies a musical starting point; the creative work also lies in deciding what to omit and how the parts fit. More submissions alone need not improve the result. For another brand, first test whether its everyday material produces an engaging work that still makes sense without an explanatory press release.

Analysis & application

1. Define the input, permission to use it and a safe way to contribute; do not encourage people to approach electrical infrastructure.
2. Show how one input becomes an output, then test how several outputs work together.
3. Document selection criteria and keep submission, contributor and selected-item counts separate.
4. Decide in advance how to measure completion, brand recall or another actual objective; compare against a relevant baseline.
5. Report awards separately from those measures. This is our proposed evaluation framework, not a claim that the Abradee campaign ran these tests.