About this prototype
A working sketch of the installation proposed for the 4th Matsu Biennial. The Chinese crested tern was rediscovered in Matsu in 2000, noticed among greater crested terns in film footage. Attention reveals the world that sustains it.
- Pointer
- Stands in for the gallery trackball. Gentle movement focuses the bird; fast movement scatters it; stillness reveals fish, weather, the colony and the flyway.
- Reveal
- The console's single button: shows the next relationship.
- Add a bird
- Simulates a visitor's phone. A bird joins the colony for a minute, opens more of the habitat, and carries an optional word across the sky.
- Idle
- After 25 seconds without input, the work moves through all three scales on its own.
- Mandala
- As in Conscious Flower: hold or sweep across the bird and its photograph folds into a kaleidoscope made of its own light. Circle it to turn the pattern; each side holds a different symmetry. Let go and it becomes one bird again.
- A year
- Follows the tern through its annual cycle: wintering in the south, the return along the coast, courtship, a single egg, hatching, fledging and departure. Drag the month slider to move through it.
Timings follow Chen et al. 2011 (breeding biology in eastern China) and Taiwan's tern monitoring. Migration routes are inferred from satellite tracking of greater crested terns from Matsu, which travel and nest with Chinese crested terns. Map coastlines are schematic.