Bird & the Moon

Bird & the Moon explores the representation of environmental data by incorporating nature back into the loop – making the live data feed back into a system that aesthetically links us back to the natural world. The work includes a seasonal affective disorder (SAD) light – effectively an array of white LEDs – hacked so the brightness of the light responds to real-time data from a remote site – in this instance a light sensor at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin. The bird is also hacked so that its head moves in response to the light. While the moon is at its brightest, the bird is mesmerised. For demonstration purposes, a local sensor enables the bird to respond to changes in ambient light level at its own location.