TERRA NOVA
Demos
2. Wood Warblers
1838: Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
The artist, explorer, and ornithologist John James Audubon spent his life delving into the far reaches of the North American wilderness, leaving behind a set of fantastically detailed and poetic journals, in addition to his crowning artistic achievement, The Birds of America. This piece presents excerpts from his writing on perhaps the most beautiful of his subjects - the Wood Warblers - accompanied by original videos of these tiny birds as they migrate through the northeast. --Brad Balliett
from Birds of America by John James Audubon
1. Black-throated Blue Warbler
The Black-throated Blue Warbler is an expert catcher of flies. It keeps in the deep woods, where it may be seen passing amongst the boughs or residing in the swampy thickets. I have never heard its love-song, but its common note is a rather melancholy cheep.
2. Palm Warbler
It approaches the gardens and groves and flies off again to the willows along the margins of the ponds and lagoons and tunes his pipe.
3. Ovenbird
Along the margins of the shady woods, where woods are watered by the creeks and rivulets, it settles for the season, and attunes its pipe to a simply lay. This informs her that her lover is at hand, as watchful as he is affectionate.
4. Common Yellowthroat
5. American Redstart
Te-te whee, te-te whee, wizz, wizz, wizz, flirting its tail from side to side, allowing the transparent beauty of the feathers to be seen.
6. Black-and-white Warbler
It climbs and creeps along the trunks, the branches, and even the twigs of the trees without intermission. It always prefers the most uncultivated tracts.
3. When China Discovered the World
1421: Atlantic Ocean
Drawing on inspiration from Dawn of Midi’s “Dysnomia” and research from 1421: The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menzies, this work reflects on the expeditions of Zheng He. His expeditions were made during the rise of the Ming Dynasty and the construction of the Forbidden City which lasted for a matter of months before burning down. Suddenly, as the Yongle Emperor Zhu di died and was superseded by the Zuande Emperor Zhu Zhanji, the economy tanked, and thus the political landscape of the era flipped. The new government burned all documentation of China’s age of exploration and thus buried the historical documents that might have proved that China was the first country to make a map of the world by way of trade and diplomacy rather than colonization. --Dylan Greene