The Backpack of Wings: Modern Mythology

Since ancient times, whenever a natural disaster strikes, people anecdotally report that “animals knew it beforehand”, a belief related to animals as spiritual beings. As telemetry systems evolve, this animistic belief is solidified and transformed into data by calculating, analysing, and biologging the animal body. This animal behavior data should make it possible to forecast such natural events in the near future. In the distant future, the evolving telemetry system could enable the creation of a new network (an Internet of Animals), in which non-humans and humans are interconnected. This new technology presents us with a ground-breaking means of facing the climate emergency. The transformation could also allow us to redefine the relationship between human beings and animals. Yet it simultaneously provokes a lot of questions: How far is the intervention of human beings into non-human life acceptable? Will animals be perceived as essential members of human society? Will they be revered as divine agents for predicting the future, or simply as measuring tools? And above all, could this technology be a genuine solution for the opaque future or is it just another anthropocentric techno-fixational illusion?

The Backpack of Wings looks into the innovative telemetry system and seeks a new relationship with non-human beings by focusing on the animistic aspect of ethological study. The project depicts an imminent scenario with the film The Backpack of Wings: Modern Mythology, and the vision of a distant future with the installation The Backpack of Wings: Post Mythology. The workshop The Backpack of Wings: Sensory Networks puts the lens on one migratory bird by using GPS data and invites the participants to create an imaginary storytelling narrative.