The film Eating Up The Sky began as an attempt to translate the experience of the Milton Keynes architectural grid layout through subtle interactions between animal, human and machine. It is a film made in collaboration with a falconer, which involves attaching a camera to his hawk and tracing its path over the city. This results in a poetic and idealistic attempt to control a raptor’s flight, which is typically emancipated from our terrestrial grounding, not systemised to the geometric patterns particular to the geography of MK. Raptors soar, surveying for prey in circles, riding the thermals. A mysterious portrait of the city and intimate relationship between falconer and hawk emerges. MK’s is the first UK city to be organised in an L.A.-style grid. The installation explores how the grid has been overlaid on the soft contours of the land, choreographing its inhabitants’ behaviour, shaping their realities. This is explored through the juxtaposition of the archaic relationship between the falconer, hawk and city. The film also shows experiments led by scientist Dr. Graham Taylor of the Avian Research Centre at Oxford University, whose current research involves raptor flight and visual perception for the design and improvement of autonomous drones.
Watch online – https://youtu.be/KYcKVgNIbt4
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