David Claerbout Eagle Eye, 2026

David Claerbout's new film Eagle Eye has a duration of several continuous hours, observing an immobilized but awake bald eagle, positioned on a surgical table and seen from various points of view.

The film is made from found footage of birds, stills, and filmed footage, later "re-skinned" with the help of generative AI as an ailing north American bald eagle, and then animated frame-by-frame. The depiction of the Eagle, its eye movements and behavior, was developed based on images and videos of more than 50 birds on tables. Using a learning model, they were transformed into a calmer, more serene depiction, with hardly any movement at all. This resulted in a film in which the process of change is subtly noticeable over the course of over many hours, suggesting a strange link between an artificial, computational realm and organic life.