Bird
Artist：Marlena Novak, Jay Alan Yim, Jesus Duran
Bird is an interactive audio-video installation using infrared technology to sense visitors in the room and respond to their presence. The work incorporates behaviors that are modeled in software to create a hidden European Blackbird (Turdusmerula). The software bird improvises complex songs comprised of phrases sung by actual blackbirds; video sequences are continually reordered, taking into account the data gathered by the system. A city dweller's encounter with the sophisticated melodic and timbral structure of these bird’s distinctive songs makes them signifiers of nature in an urban context, and evidence of an avian culture of virtuosity. The title, Bird, pays homage to Charlie Parker, a jazz musician whose inventiveness was legendary; the work also acknowledges the influence of Douglas Huebler, and his conceptual photographic series Duration Piece #5, New York, April 1969.
