Murmurations

 

Living in Brighton near the sea it's impossible to be unaware of the daily ebb and flow of starlings along the coast. They've roosted in numerous sites along the seafront and we've filmed their murmurations about 50 times over the years, often in slow motion to capture the full majesty.

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So what a pleasure to be able to draw on this resource to make an installation for the art gallery Fabrica here in Brighton - we tested rear projecting onto the 3 tall windows of the converted church that face onto the street.

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Content-wise there were several challenges - how to add graphic layers to the flight of the starlings to emphasise their collective motion and flight paths; getting the flocks of starlings to look like they were flying inside the church, and finally the content also needed to respond to the dense gridding of the windows.

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Master musician Owen Crouch made a soundtrack that echoes the gently shifting parallax and layering.

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The installation ran nightly from outside Fabrica Gallery in Brighton from November 2020 to January 2021, then was adapted for the beautiful Kirkstall Abbey at the Leeds Light Night Festival, and again at Fabrica over Christmas/New Year 2021/22. 

 

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