ShapeShifter


Video representative art work
Flight: The Vanishing of the Passenger Pigeon
Flight is a split-screen stop motion projection with layered audio sound that reflects upon the extinction of the passenger pigeon-a great species of bird that once darkened the skies for days during migration; a casualty of industrialization that was ruthlessly shot by the billions. Our centennial piece considers in part upon what it could be like to be the last of a species as hundreds of species go extinct everyday. Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died at the age of twenty-nine, in the Cincinnati zoo; never having been able to migrate.

Images: J. O'Rourke
Audio: V. Evans

Video representative art work
the cockerel
Amid the sounds of traffic, cell phone conversations and the clamor of oncoming trains; a cockerel sings clear and singular. Mechanical and human movement issues through with continuous indifference. The cockerel's voice becomes an event that breaks the static field in a single moment and settles briefly to resonate in our urban imagination.
drawings: J. O'Rourke
sound: V. Evans

Video representative art work
The Cartesian theory that animals are living machines is emphasized in the audio of this short video, to which we are opposed, even if you are a stick insect. "To be full of being is to live as a body-soul. One name for the experience of full being is joy. To be alive is to be a living soul. An animal--and we are all animals--is a living soul." J.M.Coetzee: The Lives of Animals

Images: J. O'Rourke
Audio: V. Evans