O R N I S

My project responded to the work of the artist Mikala Dwyer’s Bird (2021).

Ornis is meant to emphasize the same materiality that was emphasized in Dwyer’s Bird but responded in a digital format using 3d modeling and sound. The experience of looking at Dwyer’s work in an installation space is very different from looking at a work set up as a digital installation and immersing the viewer into this space that forces them to experience the fleshy and gross physicality of the multiple birds in the space.

The movement of the camera in the viewport is meant to take the audience much closer to these animals, seeing their textures up-close and even taking the viewer into the inner layer of their skin. The glitchy-ness of the video is meant to emphasize the digital aspect of the space and the invasive close-ness of the textured birds is a metaphor for surveillance. The idea of being watched closely by these birds is supposed to make the viewer uncomfortable and the composition of the roughness of their skin is meant to enhance that feeling of discomfort and intrusive-ness that alludes to surveillance.

The sound component of the piece is meant to enhance the materiality of the birds with a very visceral and raw sound. The aural language of the score intends to engross the audience in this feeling of intensity and overexposure to this idea of observing and being observed.