its not that i am morbid or fascinated by death in any way. its not that i like that the birds are dead. but they are incredibly interestingly photogenic.
while the advent of cameras built into cel phones has really lowered the bar for the appreciation of the art of capturing images, you simply cannot beat the convenience.
the very first dead bird i photographed in nashville
photo taken with a real camera
i was taken by the way the dead birds blended into the sidewalk, as if they were integrated as a single piece of art.
pigeons in cleveland
living birds just don't appeal to me the same way dead ones do... where photographs are concerned.
add to these particular images the low resolution of the cel phone camera, the absolute digital look of the pictures... they're strangely like a crime scene photo that has been photocopied just one time too many and has lost the definition. the weaknesses of digital photography and low res cel phone images work together to elevate a certain "artiness" to these dead birds... a certain postmodern, i saw it on tv art, but i believe that's what art has devolved to. a dangerously political statement to be expounded upon further elsewhere. perhaps.
i know an artist in brooklyn - a woman in her early 20s. her name is rebecca bird. her real name. for real. and she painted dead birds, from models. dead birds she found on the street. whenever i found dead birds in brooklyn, their cause of death was freezing. like this sparrow here:
dead sparrow photographed with a real camera
apart from natural causes, such as hypothermia, i think that the birds i see on east nashville's streets are killed by feral cats. there are so many stray animals... a feral cat lives under my house and i know she leaves us presents from time to time... i mean - i know the dead birds and assorted rodents i find on the porch are offerings from her, thanking us for the shelter
ah the food chain
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