Durational video work — Zoom series

Birds I is part of the Zooms video series, a set of durational works examining how perception shifts when distance, context, and time are allowed to reorganize an image.

The work presents five vertical video frames simultaneously. Each frame begins from a distant vantage point where the subject appears small, ambiguous, or nearly invisible within the surrounding sky and landscape.

In this piece, the subjects are birds observed from afar.

Unlike Sky I and Sky II, where all zooms occur simultaneously, Birds I introduces a sequential structure.

The first frame slowly zooms inward toward its subject. Once the zoom completes, that frame begins looping while the next frame begins its own zoom. Each successive frame activates in this way, gradually building the full composition across the screen.

The work therefore unfolds in stages.

One image becomes clear.

Then another.

Then another.

By the midpoint of the video all frames are active and looping together, producing a layered field of repeated motion.

The structure then reverses.

One by one, the loops conclude and disappear, gradually returning the screen to its original emptiness.

The composition builds and dissolves.

The birds themselves are incidental to the system. They are not symbolic figures or narrative actors. They are simply distant subjects that become briefly legible through proximity before receding again into the surrounding environment.

Within the broader Zooms series, Birds I demonstrates another dimension of contextual perception: recognition does not arrive all at once. It accumulates gradually, frame by frame, and then disappears in the same measured way.

The viewer witnesses both the construction and the disappearance of context.

Meaning appears slowly.

Then it leaves.

Credits

Recorded by Seth Dager

Edited by Seth Dager