The Captive Bird Society is a current contemporary art project, which locates itself in the expanded fields of installation and sound art, theory and fashion. In 1910, the first published recording of a bird was brought out on the Gramophone label, ‘Record made by a captive nightingale’, made by Carl Reich. Since 2008, Gluzberg has been building an archive of the original 78rpm records. Using old analogue technology, the project deals with the wider notions of ‘capture’ and fashion through the construction of a sonic landscape in the form of installations. This research has developed a dialogue with some of Friedrich Kittler’s key ideas in his seminal work, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.
Each of the project’s manifestations evolves to produce new knowledge through the juxtaposition of excavated material, as described by the curator David Thorp in his catalogue essay for Distance and Sensibility (2010): ‘Margarita Gluzberg has created a performance as sculpture, sound piece and installation […] In her performances that are part of the work and can last up to twelve hours, Gluzberg adopts the role of bird-keeper in her sonic aviary. Each time she performs, she chooses a costume appropriate for its different context, an integral part of the Captive Bird Society's evolution.’
Related outcomes included the exhibition ‘Captive Bird Society’, MAC/VAL Museum, Paris (2009); ’Captive Bird Society’, Nuit Blanche contemporary art commissions with the Didier Ludot Haute Couture Collection, École Normale Supérieure, Paris (2009); and the group exhibition ‘Distance and Sensibility’, Calvert 22, London (2010). The project was also incorporated into solo exhibitions ‘Captive Bird Society: Dublin Edition’, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin (2009) and ‘Phonographicon’, Zonca&Zonca, Milan (2010).
The project was one of the subjects of an interview with author Tom McCarthy for Bomb magazine, New York (2012). Other press included: ‘Distance and sensibility’ in the Guardian (2010).