murmur 21, 26 November, 2006

Here’s a subtle way of presenting art related to technique. Richard Barnes photographed a flock of starlings in the sky of Rome. The sun was setting and the birds were retiring to roost. The image is just a stain that could have taken any shape. We know that this is true while we look at it and that makes it mysterious and plastic. It must be delayed in its contemplation and yet, contrary to what Kant preached, there is no reason to relinquish practical or cognitive outcomes. The attraction is twofold: the snapshot does not preclude that the movement is always ready to evoke. On the other hand, the desire of knowing how this movement is produced cannot be alien to the viewer. How is it possible for millions of starlings to manage to move with more skill than a single one? In a well-known article published by National Geographic in July 2007, its editor Peter Milles quotes Luis Guius: “Each bird, simply with its position in the air space, is a node that is communicating a continuous flow of data to its closest companions who will move with reference to it. Therefore the information available in each bird is sensibly local (...) Actions occur in parallel, there are no rules that determine who is going to move first and who is moving after, but rather a fast synchronisation with changing dancing partners whose toes one must not tread on. “Milles relates the movements of shoals, flocks and swarms with all kinds of technical possibilities: efficient systems for transportation companies, scheduling aircraft at airports or operating social media. Perhaps it is the contradiction between the lack of leadership and the safety in the actions of so many that makes Barnes’ image so attractive: A mass movement without head, delicately presented, that opens up before anyone looking at it the ideas of beauty, technique, and resistance through union. Watercolour on paper
Miguel Leache