Between the Sun and the Oranges
2007
Video projection on floating sphere
single-channel video, 8:00 min, looped
sphere, satellite with video projector, media player, speakers
collaboration with Saori Tsukada, Audio Design: Asako Fujimoto
acrylic sphere, variable dimension 50 cm - 4 m (1.5 – 8 ft.) diameter

“Do I go rolling without wheels, flying without wings or feathers?” 

The video is projected on a massive globe, to a mix of sung material and field recordings; the images featured a bird person hybrid amid flocks of pigeons.The breath of the bird lady appears in the space and we find ourselves in the air, in the middle of courageous circling pigeon flocks. The eye is taken by a whirl pull of flittering wings and exhilarating freedom. In the round of the balloon the birds fly higher and higher towards the end of the sky.

On one rooftop we hear the chant of the bird lady who wants to be able to fly like the birds. From another roof we hear the noise of military aircrafts. This sound comes from the pigeon owners who send their pigeons as soldiers in the sky.

Pigeon flying is an age-old activity. Italian immigrants brought it to New York in the 1860s and for close to 150 years it has been passed from rooftop to rooftop, evolving itself into a sort of game played from established territories, the pigeon coop, and directed via the “generals”, the men or boys who keeps the pigeons. The Brooklyn Pigeon Wars, as they call it, is an aerial social casino. To play, a coop owner releases his pigeons, letting them fly freely in a flock over Brooklyn, meeting up with similar flocks released by other owners.

At a certain point the flocks turn homeward, arriving lesser or greater in number than they started out. A coop owner might lose half his flock in one night, while others gain as many. This is how birds are lost and won.

Between the Sun and the Oranges is poetic metaphor about power, dependence and freedom, which takes place on New York’s rooftops in front of a breath taking evening sky.