Airbrushed Pigeons in Venice

Last summer artists Julian Charrière and Julius von Bismarck collaborated to airbrush 35 pigeons with an unnatural rainbow of colours. They managed this by building and installing a pigeon trap which acted rather like a car wash conveyer belt, only with paint. Pigeons would go in one end black and grey only to emerge on the other side in colours ranging from electric blue to sunset red. Although the birds looked gorgeous and Charrière claimed that the project was an attempt to inspire more respect for the birds dubbed "rats with wings", I can't help but feel that it was a tiny bit unethical to trap birds and spray some sort of paint onto them. The artists haven't even specified the paint used or the harm this could cause to the birds' feathers and skin. Unsurprisingly, many people have been critical of the treatment of the birds with many animal rights supporters condemning the artwork as animal cruelty. Another issue that could be raised against the artists is that the pigeons were actually captured in Copenhagen and then transported to Venice and released as part of the Venice Biennale (a huge art festival).

The "pigeon apparatus" used by Charrière and von Bismarck.

However, ethical issues aside, I think that the pigeons actually look beautiful. Colouring them was an extremely effective way of drawing attention to an under-appreciated and abused animal. It brought to light how shallow humans can be when faced with something they consider ugly as opposed to how they react to beautiful or cute animals. As well as raising awareness of pigeons, it was also a brilliant opportunity to take some awesome photos of the birds as they flew around St. Marks square. The pigeons look more like exotic tropical birds than the vermin they are usually considered to be, and the only thing that changed was the colour of their feathers. People paid attention and wanted to watch them fly around rather than ignoring them.
This has shown me a new side of voyeurism: making something attractive and viewable to encourage people to look at it. I know that people make themselves look attractive all the time in order to be noticed, but it's never really clicked in my mind that they could be encouraging voyeurism in those around them. Plenty of celebrities will pull publicity stunts in order to get attention, and plenty of managers and producers will glam up someone's "look" in order to do the same. Now I kind of want to explore making things viewable and aesthetically attractive. I could take an ordinary object and try to make it attention-grabbing in order to see how people will react to it.