As a human, one of the closest approximations you can have to living like a bird is to look at Google Maps. (Well, one of the closest approximations besides actually leaving the computer and going outside to hang-glide, for instance, but let’s not be ridiculous.) On the terrain view, it’s like you’re flying high above the land. Except that actually, you are way better off than birds, because you get driving directions and Zagat reviews and little red Google destination markers to show you where you’re going. Birds get none of that. But artist Shuchun Hsiao is working to make the experience a little more equal.
Hsiao hasn’t enabled Zagat reviews for birds, or even Yelp, but he has an ongoing project in which he puts up birdhouses that look like Google Map markers. Like humans, they can now head towards those little red bubbles.
The artist explains:
Birds, have the most real experience of google map. Birds can fly through the city, through streets. A birdhouse becomes their destination as google map does …
The project is aiming to put numbers of birdhouses all over the city for bird to accommodate. The iconic symbol will become a navigating landmark for the flying birds.
So now, birds flying around a city can pretend that they’re humans.
