Mariana Carranza

“… mimicking birds, Humans become angels … “

Ephemeral angels is an interactive installation based on a digital interface.
 Visitors see themselves, like being reflected in a mirror with wings of white plumage inside a magical mirage.
Interactively generated sound aims to blur the boundaries between virtual and real.

This work not only refers to philosophical creatures, but also to the beginnings of Aviation Science, following biomimicry concepts from the first attempts of flight in human history, such as those of Leonardo da Vinci and Otto Lilienthal.
The wings and feathers were taken from Otto Lilienthal’s studies, collected in his publication “The bird flight as basis of the art of flying“ from 1889.

He wrote there, “I intended to […] create a work whose elaboration should spread the conviction, that there really is no law in nature that, like an insurmountable bolt, encloses the solution to the problem of flying.”

Some users experiences:

“This work creates a space of pre-lingual and ancestral happiness…”

“This poetic work evokes the tale about imaginary beings “Swedenborg’s Angels” by Jorge Luis Borges, with whom the artist shares her native language. In it, the scientist Emanuel Swedenborg attributed subtle qualities, justice and intelligence to angels. Swedenborg’s angels are those souls who have chosen heaven. Two humans, who have loved each other on earth, form one angel in heaven. Their manifestation changes with their moods, and their robes shine according to the intelligence of the beholder.“

“… most of us are ephemeral angels on Earth … we just have not realized it.“