Dutch artist Germaine Kruip filmed satin bowerbirds in her work Aesthetics as a Way of Survival similar to my 2004 video work herethere(hide). Her film about the bowerbird poses the question relating to the »artificial« and the »natural« in a surprisingly new way, encompassing the whole exhibition with this dichotomy. Guided by visual similarities …
Have just discovered that Clifford and Dawn have written a new book Bowerbirds: Nature, Art and History to be published in December. It even has a whole section on the history of bowerbird discovery and bowerbirds and human culture. They have done my work for me!
And was kindly sent the coordinates of 10 bowers in the vicinity of the Broome Bird Observatory. An excellent stroke of luck!
diagram from Linnean style categorisation of the tree of life
The warden at Broome passed on some tantalising information about a researcher from Queensland who was mapping bowerbirds with a GPS in the last year or so. Details are sketchy so I am now ploughing through universities in Queensland trying to find out someone who might know this mystery person. It would be great …