Documentation of a Bird in a Box (2005, Buried)
Steel, TV, wireless video camera, electronic components, bird.
(approx. box dimensions 7 x 7 x 24 inches)
A television projects live feed from a wireless video camera within a sealed, rectangular, steel box. Inside the box are the video camera and a dead bird. The only thing passing through the box walls are an electrical cord (the power source for the video camera) and the invisible signal to the wireless video receiver.
This work creates an internal place within the steel box cut off from any reality outside. Welded shut, the only things allowed to pass through the walls are electricity to power the video camera inside, and television signals streaming out. The picture displayed on the television (the inside of the contained space captured in infrared) informs the viewer that such a place exists and is real. Furthermore, a bird inhabits this lost space, grounding it in our own experience and reality. Yet this space is always, for us, unattainable.
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