Fly Away

Guy Hundere · Ornithomancy
Hiraki Sawa · Dwelling

Hiraki Sawa’s black-and-white video, Dwelling, 2002, is a surreal juxtaposition of how one’s private space becomes host to imaginary flying commercial jets.   Hundreds of miniature aircrafts soar through Sawa’s apartment, taking off and landing on countertops, kitchen tables, and bedroom floors.  Sawa’s ideas regarding the “flight” originate in the concepts of displacement, migration, and simultaneously being nowhere and everywhere.  Because of flying, people have become international nomads, taking up residency all over the world.  In Dwelling, the world has been transformed into the artist’s apartment.  One could think of each room as another country - another state - or a state of mind.

Hiraki Sawa was born in Ishikawa, Japan, and currently lives in London.  He received his MA from the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2003 and his BFA from the University of East London in 2000. 

Guy Hundere’s Ornithomancy, 2003, is a video animation of a sky filled with Taschen 747 airplanes.  Hundere has transformed the slow moving, cumbersome object into an agile craft, which flies through the skies in patterns based on twin algorithms derived from physics and animal behavior models.  The acrobatic movements of the planes recall the fluid motions of swimming fish or birds in flight. Ornithomancy, the practice of augury, is an ancient method of divination that interprets the flight patterns of birds.  The term "augury" properly refers to the practice of the Greeks and Romans to foretell future events by the observation and interpretation of the flights, chattering or singing of birds.

Hundere is an artist living in San Antonio, Texas.  He received his BS in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, in 1991.