The Bird is an interactive audiovisual installation that focuses on the imprisonment imposed by humans on a creature whose nature is to fly. At the center of the installation there is a cage, inside which there is no physical bird, but a system consisting of an Arduino, a distance sensor, a speaker, a relay, and an MP3 player.

The work is based on a contradiction: a creature with wings, made to move freely, is confined and forced to “exist” in an unnatural way, within a controlled and exposed environment.

The system is activated by the viewer’s distance: as the viewer approaches, different sound layers are triggered. At very close range, chirping sounds alternate with a processed human voice (the artist’s), which directly addresses the viewer.

In this work, chirping is not treated as something pleasant or decorative, but as a protest and a call for release. The human voice reinforces this condition, adopting an ironic and aggressive tone and, at times, using “insults,” always through a coded use of humor.

The work uses technology as part of the condition itself: in place of the living creature there is a mechanism that activates sound and movement.

Maria Koskina