For the Birds (2004)

Interaction Diagram

Axonometric

Site Collage

Birds are the triggers for the on-off switches in an outdoor display of real-time video feeds from the 2004 Athens Olympics. This project, developed in collaboration with Natalie Jeremijenko, was a finalist in the competition for outdoor public art projects in ATHENS 2004, “Catch the Light: 7 Routes through Athens.”

“For the Birds” inserts the birds of Athens in the space between the Olympics broadcast media and the city of Athens. The birds “dj” the Olympics.
Live media streams are activated when a bird lands the perch, weaving glimpses and snippets of the Olympics action and broadcast presence into the pedestrian urban experience during the Olympics. Although interactive, the interactions in this project is not point and click/remote control but extends the human machine feedback loop through the birds, to include the contingencies of their behavior, frustrating our control, and drawing human, birds and machines into an interdependent urban system.

Viewers are experiencing the Olympics through and with the birds, the general effect is to amplify the presence of the birds—who will remain long after the Olympic spectacle has finished—directing some of the massive public attention dedicated to the Olympics towards the birds, the skies, and the local material conditions they inhabit.

» For The Birds

Natalie Jeremijenko
Laura Kurgan Design:
Janette Kim, Project Manager