The Lost Passage
The Lost Passage is a digitally reconstructed environment of a swarm of artificial passenger pigeons. Here, they inhabit a destitute memory of a lost landscape while being confined within the four walls of this space.
Group Martha:
Amay Kataria (USA), Shaohui Kwok (Singapore) & Yu-Jeng Kuo (Singapore)
Mentor: Ong Kian-Peng (Singapore)
Concept Note
“The Lost Passage” is a digitally reconstructed environment of a swarm of artificial passenger pigeons, which went extinct in the early 20th century. In this digital space, they inhabit a never-ending, sublime, yet destitute memory of a lost landscape. However, on closer inspection, they are actually confined within the four walls of this space.
It was a grim awakening in 1914 when the passenger pigeons faced extinction – this displayed the capability of industrial humanity which annihilated even the most plentiful of natural resources. “The Lost Passage” reflects upon this historical moment of Holocene extinction by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to resurrect a memory of a lost passage. Thus evoking a sense of being trapped and confined through the sublime imagery. The audience can coexist in an environment with the ghost of a species they once eliminated – an ironic and strange affair. Perhaps these occurrences can compel the audience to reflect upon our lack of empathy towards other living beings, our guileful ways of harming others for self-interests, and our problematic perception that nature is the implacable enemy that needs to be civilized, contained and controlled.
PROJECT LINK: https://thelostpassage.art
INTENDED AUDIENCE: The intended audience for the work is anybody with a smart device. Even though it’s a web application, it’ll have different levels of interaction for different devices. Due to the demand for high computation resources for 3D rendering on mobile devices, we will be replacing the 3D canvas with a video of the work. Thus one will not be able to interact with the flock on mobile. Here, we will add some information on the landing page that this will be a limited experience. The full experience will be viewable on the desktop on Chrome (Mac and Windows) even though we are currently optimizing the website for Safari on Mac as well. .
Detailed Description
“The Lost Passage” creates an interactive experience for the web that tactfully draws the audience into a virtual world. This space is a reconstructed habitat for a swarm of passenger pigeons, which are resurrected from the dead using digital technology. Since this species went extinct in the early 20th century, the aesthetics of this work are inspired by collecting archival images and stories published about them in the past. The last known flock of these pigeons was raised in careful captivity near Chicago. Due to their endangered status, the flock would migrate from city to city through the confines of a freight train. Loosely inspired from this anecdote, the box environment in “The Lost Passage” points out this contradiction where a species that gracefully migrated with freedom in the past, was eventually constructed within the walls of a crate to ensure safe passage.
The walls of this reconstructed environment are painted with a moving image of a surreal landscape crafted with machine learning algorithms to deliberately create a perception of a fictitious movement. Finally, each of these pigeons is a ghost, an avatar, a substitute for the real pigeon, whose agency is now driven by artificial intelligence that helps them navigate this world. They not only possess a sense of individuality and freedom but also collectively move as a flock, while sensibly avoiding the restrictions of the box they are placed in. The audience is brought in close proximity to this flock and given the control to observe these pigeons’ new habitat. Through that, one can perceive the boundary of the walls within which these pigeons are forced to reside. The juxtaposition of this ghostly flock of pigeons within a restricted environment of a never-ending landscape references the irony of migrating passenger pigeons through a cage. Perhaps, this may evoke a feeling of sublime beauty or a sense of discomfort for the viewer, who’s experiencing this extinct species in relation to a crude, but the visceral image of a moving landscape.
In “The Lost Passage”, the viewer is free to roam the digital space by simply navigating their mouse in any direction. One can read about the context behind this project by clicking on the buttons on the top-left of the window that lets them scroll for more information. The work is hosted as a website and can be accessed on both mobile and desktop. It’ll be functional on Chrome and Safari web-browsers. Due to technical constraints, a video recording of the experience will replace the interactive canvas on mobile. However, the audience can still experience specific moments that we want to put forth.
Bibliography, References and Tech Stack
Remembering Passenger Pigeons, National Geographic https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2014/09/11/remembering-martha-washington-the-last-passenger-pigeon/
Passenger Pigeon: The Ecosystem Engineer of Eastern North American Forests, Source: Revive Restore – https://reviverestore.org/the-passenger-pigeon-the-ecosystem-engineer-of-eastern-north-american-forests/
Why the Passenger Pigeon Went Extinct, Audubon: https://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-june-2014/why-passenger-pigeon-went-extinct
Generating Photorealistic Video with AI, Jon Warlick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXFmZsv0Ddw
Depiction of shooting in Northern Louisiana, Smith Bennett (1875), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon#/media/File:Passenger_pigeon_shoot.jpg
Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon, National Museum of Natural History: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/vertebrate-zoology/birds/collections-overview/martha-last-passenger-pigeon
Intended Technology & Integrated Tools
Where the work stands right now as a website, we’ll need a laptop or a desktop PC to actually present the full experience of the work. However, if the physical showcase does happen we’ll re-evaluate what to show. The most natural course of action would be to make the 3D canvas compatible with WebXR, so one can experience the flock with a VR headset. Additionally we could produce 3D prints of our custom pigeon model that we have created as well.
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