Bird

The “Bird” series is profoundly cinematic: the original material and subject of photography is a black-and-white film showing sequences of movement: the flight of a bird captured by a Super 8 camera. The footage was transferred to VHS and subsequently photographed from the monitor using an analog SLR camera. 

The filmed sequence of movements is an integral part of the photographer’s work with the medium of video. Stripes created by frequency differences between the generation of the image on the monitor and the camera’s exposure speed define new, horizontal fields of light and dark, making the bird hover between light and deep shadows and leading into the subjective space of interpretation.

The individual frames were subjected to a further technical transmutation: Deep in the visual space, grids of horizontal and vertical lines from the video monitor are clearly recognizable on the photographs and introduce an additional variation on the theme of light and dark. The black is broken up by the light that is filtering through, the bright horizontals acquiring their nuances from the various shades of gray generated by the grids.

The bird itself appears rudimentarily drawn, archetypal in its movements. It is not only its contours that are connected to its technically created surroundings – its entire body is part of this interplay of light and shadow. It roams these spheres like a dark messenger, an archaic being in a space constructed with almost mathematical meticulousness. It is this contrast that makes the creature appear so powerful and creates the atmosphere of the “Bird” series – a vital sign of life in a technoidenvironment.

Text: Bernadette Dewald
Translation: Cem Angeli

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© Ulrike Felder. All rights reserved