Studies at Huningue
Basel or the Tree to Sleep
Lutz P. Kayser
2019 - 12 min - Vidéo Full HD - Couleur - Suisse, Allemagne, France

It is the artistic documentation of aesthetic swarm intelligence. The middle part of the essay film gives the impression that the starlings shot their meditative round only for my cameras after my direction
These six minutes essentially consist of an en bloc shot, which I adjusted exactly to the track with only a few cuts and in which I do without special effects. I leave the stage to the swamrs of starlings, they are art!
The film starts three times, twice with the track by Philip Glass and ends about five times... That means, it divides into two or even three parts, of which the first part starts rather quietly, but not only pleasantly, and the pictures and the unbelievably well fitting track increase bit by bit, up to the complete ecstasy of the birds, when they suddenly all fall into a single tree to sleep as if on command. The spectacle of nature, that thousands and thousands of starlings gather to continue their flight into the warm south to spend the night together, remained almost unnoticed by the public. The starlings' sleeping place is not in the wilderness, but in the middle of the Basel conurbation.
Thus my short essay film on aesthetic swarm intelligence of these huge swarms of starlings near Basel, which I documented for weeks in autumn 2017 and 2018, becomes an example of non-perception. I underline the essay character of the film visually with targeted time-lapse shots of aesthetic, dramatic celestial phenomena. With these time-lapse shots, I make some of these phenomena visible in the first place. I have inserted significant, also absurdly appearing original sounds of residents, telling of monotonous stock market prices, partly symbolic noises from the air, like radio tuning each with my artistic freedom, audible for the essay character. The modem noise, for example, symbolizes Wifi and all other radiations in the air, the swelling thunderclouds almost immeasurable energy, as they show the starlings themselves.
My approach to film is aesthetics. These graceful, chaotic, yet extremely disciplined and fast flight manoeuvres of the starlings get along without a chief star and the starlings are considered to be very social, helpful and peaceful.