Sciuridaes
Sciuridaes is a project capturing anthropomorphic videos of little beasts in my backyard.
link to project: https://www.lumibarron.com/sciuridaes
This project is inspired by children’s book illustrations of animals picnicking together in the forest, and is a continuation of the same project from earlier this semester. The squirrels perform uniquely ‘human’ activities such as reading and “baking”. They eat from tables with tea pots and snack on bagels in their kitchens. Their choices of activities, mirror how I, a human, spend my time.
What I’m particularly excited about, in this set of squirrel videos, is that I think they portray an intimacy of the single squirrel room space, which unintentionally mimicked how being stuck at home all the time feels.
Gifs:
Videos:
Process:
These videos were filmed at 120fps using a Canon M50, and enhanced to a higher quality using Topaz video enhance AI. While I experimented with DAIN (video interpolation program) for different frame rates, the pace of 120 fps worked the best.
Key materials: For the span of this project, to train and film the squirrels, I have exhausted the 8lb bag of squirrel food, two bags of walnuts, 4.5 apples, some carrots here and there (trying to offer healthier options, they are getting chunky), a full jar of Jif peanut butter and half a jar of fancy Costco peanut butter (which they like significantly less than the Jif). I have also accumulated a cast of 8 ‘repeating visitor’ squirrels and in the last week an additional 5 squirrels just out of the nest.
Long usb to control camera remotely while watching for squirrels out the window:
All audio is of actual squirrel sounds from the yard. (recording studio involved an iphone 7 in a zipock bag near a pile of snacks)
Remnants from squirrels who read:
