From: On the Wings of an Unusual Exhibition by Alice Pfeiffer, Part of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s exhibition at Barbican’s Curve, (Barbican Gallery, Silk Street, London): …. For his first solo show in Britain, the French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot has built an aviary orchestra at the Curve — and the exhibition is designed specially for the unusual space, which wraps around the concert hall at the Barbican Center.

At the show, which runs through May 23 at the Curve …, a basic rock set-up — guitars, bass, cymbals — are set up alongside amplifiers, and seeds and water are sprinkled all over the instruments; instead of musicians, there are 40 zebra finches. As they fly around and pick grain off the instruments, they generate a chance composition.

Due to the circular shape of the space, visitors come in without being able to see the piece in its entirety. They start by hearing what seems at first to be an experimental rock band rehearsal — only to discover the true nature of the flying performers.

The artist is a classically trained musician, experimenting with usually mundane sounds and their relation to visual images. “Art is an opportunity by which things can escape their functionality, and my approach aims to compose situations to reveal these potentials,” he said.