HONOR AND ANIMATE THE MEMORY OF AN EXTINCT BIRD

RE-ANIMATED is a 15-minute meditative and guided VR experience, that brings memories of the extinct Kaua‘i ʻōʻō bird, and its lost Hawaiian habitat, back to life. Biological traces of the bird and recordings of its final 1975 mating call, turn into a magical-realist portrait. You enter an ecosystem suspended in time.

AN INTERPLAY BETWEEN BIOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY

Created with special access to the American Museum of Natural History and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s restricted archives, the artwork bridges natural history and digital imagination. The experience is based on an interview with ornithologist Douglas H. Pratt, who was one of the last to see the bird when alive. The experience becomes a tribute and a reflection on how technology reshapes our connection to the natural world.

A HAND-CRAFTED DIGITAL MEMORYSCAPE

Developed from years of field research and 3D scans of real flora and fauna, the experience blends documentary material with a hand-crafted digital environment. RE-ANIMATED’s virtual world comes to life with music by Michael Riesman, Musical Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble, combined with field-recordings of the bird's original habitat, creating a painterly memory of the bird.

BRING THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE TO YOUR HOME

RE-ANIMATED is a museum-grade experience, shown at the Future Generations Art Prize at the Venice Biennale 2019, and exhibited internationally at more than 45 leading arts institutions; Such as PHI Montreal 2026, Arken Museum of Contemporary Art 2023, Espoo Museum of Modern Art 2022, Centre Pompidou 2023, and M+ Museum 2022. Festival presentations include SXSW 2019, CPH:DOX 2019, Geneva Film Festival 2018, Immersive Tech Week 2020 and REFRESH 2020.

This is not a game. It is a landmark piece in contemporary VR art, now adapted for you to share and experience at home. Get this if you are curious to experience the work outside of museums, or if you have followed the project and want to support it.

PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS

For the best experience if using the Meta Quest headset, we recommend using the official MetaLink cable.

For any headset, updating your graphic drivers and turning up the performances in your GPU settings on laptops/mobile GPU will help.