Previous AA2A Artist

Rachel Magdeburg

Year:
2014-15
Location:
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Email:
rachelmagdeburg@hotmail.co.uk
Project summary:

Milvus milvus: The reCAPTCHA

 

I am using the NU facilities to create a video, provisionally titled ‘Milvus milvus: The reCAPTCHA’. This will be the culmination of research I have already started. It will incorporate voiceover, sound, still imagery, text and moving image in a method not dissimilar to a talking head or ‘Jackernory’.

I completed a one-month residency in May at East Street Arts in Leeds. For this I researched the ‘reintroduction’ of the Red Kite (Milvus milvus) bird of prey to my hometown in the Chilterns, to Gateshead where I now live and to West Yorkshire, where the residency took place. I researched this subject through photography, reading, museum artefacts, field trips, interviews, aerial research, meeting experts within the fields of Conservation, Ecology, Biodiversity and Evolution, and I worked with Professors from Leeds University Biological Sciences department.

I twisted this research and wrote a lyrical script Milvus milvus. This chronological narrative tells a story through rhyming text and word play. It is satirical and features different anthropomorphic characters such as Turdus obscurus and Humans such as ‘The Red Baron (Wrathchild)’. It traces the Red Kites near annihilation during the 19th century by Humans and extinction in England and Scotland, and then their ‘moral’ restoration due to guilt. The Red Kites seek revenge for their destruction and ‘assisted translocation’ and retaliate by taking over the UK through brand domination and monopolizing Business, Leisure, Technology and Enviro-Tourism sectors. I embedded issues surrounding Immigration (compared to bird migration), Nationalism, Racism, Genetics and Economics into the fiction as these relate to my concerns towards contemporary society and my family’s heritage. It also topically addresses the current hot debates regarding the Anthropocene and Rewilding; considering Humans’ relationship to Nature, the question of what is a ‘native’ or ‘invasive species’ and our own ‘ecological boredom’ (Monbiot).

Milvus milvus: The reCAPTCHA

 

I am using the NU facilities to create a video, provisionally titled ‘Milvus milvus: The reCAPTCHA’. This will be the culmination of research I have already started. It will incorporate voiceover, sound, still imagery, text and moving image in a method not dissimilar to a talking head or ‘Jackernory’.

I completed a one-month residency in May at East Street Arts in Leeds. For this I researched the ‘reintroduction’ of the Red Kite (Milvus milvus) bird of prey to my hometown in the Chilterns, to Gateshead where I now live and to West Yorkshire, where the residency took place. I researched this subject through photography, reading, museum artefacts, field trips, interviews, aerial research, meeting experts within the fields of Conservation, Ecology, Biodiversity and Evolution, and I worked with Professors from Leeds University Biological Sciences department.

I twisted this research and wrote a lyrical script Milvus milvus. This chronological narrative tells a story through rhyming text and word play. It is satirical and features different anthropomorphic characters such as Turdus obscurus and Humans such as ‘The Red Baron (Wrathchild)’. It traces the Red Kites near annihilation during the 19th century by Humans and extinction in England and Scotland, and then their ‘moral’ restoration due to guilt. The Red Kites seek revenge for their destruction and ‘assisted translocation’ and retaliate by taking over the UK through brand domination and monopolizing Business, Leisure, Technology and Enviro-Tourism sectors. I embedded issues surrounding Immigration (compared to bird migration), Nationalism, Racism, Genetics and Economics into the fiction as these relate to my concerns towards contemporary society and my family’s heritage. It also topically addresses the current hot debates regarding the Anthropocene and Rewilding; considering Humans’ relationship to Nature, the question of what is a ‘native’ or ‘invasive species’ and our own ‘ecological boredom’ (Monbiot).

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