a bird in the google | Deanne Achong

Participants

http://residente.studioxx.org/deanne/
http://www.archivenotes.net/birds/
Dates: February-March 2005
Length: 8 weeks
Format: interactive website

“A bird in the house means death in the house”
— Do you know this superstition? Have any stories about it?
Deanne Achong is an artist doing a research/web production project which looks at various stories about birds. She will be collecting stories, and images for use in a project sponsored by STUDIOXX as part of a virtual residency. If you have any stories and/or images (or even video clips) you would be willing to contribute, please visit studioxx.org. Thematically, they do not need to be strictly restrained to the realm of superstitious tales.

If you are interested in contributing to this project, let the artist know here: http://residente.studioxx.org/deanne/

a bird in the google will focus on the intersection of various narratives about birds and exploring the technology of delivering this narrative. The stories will be culled from various sources, a blend of fiction, information found on the web and material gathered from inviting participants to send me pictures, video clips and stories about birds. I am particularly interested in tales of superstition connected with birds, although this is not the only point of interest.

A database will be created from which random or selected stories will be displayed along with the imagery. Flash will be used to interpret the video and other imagery, with an interest in using the process of degeneration of the image as a feature, rather than a negative or mistake. Also, the concept of slowness is something I want to examine, to remember that broad-band access is not yet everywhere.

Deanne Achong is a Vancouver based artist. She is interested in the web for a bundle of reasons, and keeps hoping to be one day outwit google. She has exhibited her work, online and off, in Canada, the US, Europe and the Caribbean. She has a BFA from NSCAD and an MFA from UBC.