RE-ANIMATED
2018 - Advanced Technology (Advanced Technology)
14:00 minutes
Jakob Kudsk Steensen
RE-ANIMATED by Jakob Kudsk Steensen revolves around the haunting sound of the Kauai’O’o, a bird that became extinct in the year of Steensen’s birth. Its mating call, recorded and circulated on YouTube, where it has attracted hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments from viewers who felt the need to share their own emotional connection with this creature. For Steensen, the video exemplifies the way in which digital media experiences can serve as a memorial for a disappearing natural world, and how they can activate deeply felt connections with nonhuman creatures. RE-ANIMATED extends this function of the digital by inviting the viewer to a simulated island of Kaua’i where the ghostly bird lives amidst a diverse selection of flora and fauna, which grow and evolve algorithmically, accompanied by a generative musical score. Thus, the work functions both as a site for the activation of memory and connection with the bird’s past, but also as a kind of prototype for a future relationship with nature that is marked by technological intervention and new, hybrid forms.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen employs a formally rigorous approach to creating multi-layered VR environments that engage with the contemporary issue of extinction. Eschewing the idea that VR offers a potential “solution” to the disappearance of biodiversity, Steensen aims to reflect rather on the deep sense of loss surrounding extinction and the poetics of hybrid relationships between nature and technology. His works often exist as omnibus collaborations drawing on the creative input of musicians, writers, scientists, and developers, and are staged in spaces that combine tactile materials with impeccably rendered virtual worlds.
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