“Birding the Future” is an ongoing artwork by Krista Caballero and Frank Ekeberg that explores current extinction rates by focusing on the warning capabilities of birds as bio-indicators of environmental change.
The installation, open to all audiences, invites visitors to listen to the cries of endangered and extinct birds and view visionary avian landscapes through stereographs and videos. The exhibition can be visited from 10 to 16 June at EINA Bosc (Carrer del Bosc, 2) and is included in the 27th edition of the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) 2022.
Birds provide a unique window into the cultural and ecological entanglements of our time. Unrestricted by human-imposed borders, approximately five billion birds migrate yearly, linking cultures, countries, and ecologies, and revealing issues collectively shared. Declining bird populations in practically all habitat types signal profound changes over our entire planet.
“Birding the Future” poses three questions in response to this crisis: What does it mean that we can only see and hear extinct species through technology? What might happen as the messages of birds are increasingly being silenced? How might we bridge knowledge systems using traditional and emerging technologies to develop a cross-cultural praxis for ecological futures rooted in kinship with the world?
Calls of endangered birds are extracted to create Morse code messages based upon tales, stories, and poetry in which birds speak to humans. These are combined with calls of extinct birds, which act as a memory of the past and underscore technological reproduction as the only means to hear certain species. A real-time algorithm scales the extinction rate to the duration of the exhibition — the longer you stay the fewer birds you hear. The soundscape is paired with a series of stereographs, which explore the landscape of human-bird encounters via imagery, poetry, data and research. Video footage from the Goller Lab explores the ethics and technological impact of research conducted in a more-than-human world.
To date there are five region-specific iterations of the project: Queensland Australia, Arabian Peninsula, Norway, Mid-Atlantic USA, RheinMain Germany and a series focused on laboratory birds.
This activity is part of ISEA2022 Barcelona, the 27th edition of the International Symposium on Electronic Art. Promoted by the UOC in collaboration with the CCCB, Santa Mònica, NewArtFoundation, the new Barcelona Hac Te Art, Science and Technology Hub, MACBA, Barcelona City Council and the Catalan government's Department of Culture, it is one of the most important events on an international scale dedicated to the crossover between art, design, science, technology and society.
Birding the Future, Krista Caballero & Frank Ekeberg