Here and Not: An Illustrated and Animated Performance on Birds

Stupid Pills is pleased to present a night of birds.

Here and Not is an illustrated and animated performance by Elkpen, with John Linton and Simon Reilly.

Hundreds of species of birds (and many more) have gone extinct. Let's consider one of them. Over the course of a century the population of passenger pigeons in the United States went from billions to just one, named Martha, who lived in the Cincinnati Zoo. She died in 1914.

Human impact on the world's life forms and ecosystems is probably here to stay (at least until we're gone). Some scientists proclaim this the beginning of the Anthropocene Era—a time in which evolution responds more to technology and hubris than natural selection. Who's footing the bill for our experiment?
Join us for a freestyle elkalogue on extinction, plenty, gone-ness, eating and being eaten, time, serendipity, cataclysm, unintended consequences, progress, and the shifting silicones of evolution. "Here and Not" will recount the plight of the passenger pigeon with illustration, animation, and music.

With an opening number by Stupid Pills.

About Elkpen
elk-ol-o-gy: n. 1. the branch of street art dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment.

Elkpen uses public space to frame images that talk about the state of nature in urban places. By placing a sign in a public space Elkpen hopes to bring immediacy and context to important topics while pointing to what we expect to see in our environment, what we overlook, and what we take for granted.