Xavi Bou

Watching birds fly is like looking into the future and, in a way, also into the past.

In ancient Rome, omens were signs from the gods, interpreted by an augur, a priest who practised divination. The word “auspicius” is derived from Latin, composed of “avis”, meaning bird, and the verb “spicio”, meaning to see or look. Hence auspex, literally “one who looks at birds”, a practice in Greco-Roman religion consisting of observing the behaviour of birds to receive omens. The augur, dressed in the toga auguralis or travea, indicated that he would exercise his ministry and, to make his observations, climbed to the top of the auguraculum: then he would turn towards the East, point with the lituus, a curved staff, at the templum, a part of the sky divided into four quadrangular parts (today we would say four screens), and begin to carefully observe the birds that appeared, the way they flew, their songs, and towards which side of the templum they directed their flight, their speed and trajectory.
Augurs could not know the future, but they were able to discern, through auspices, whether a human act was in accordance with the divine will or not.

Xavi Bou is a contemporary augur who specialises in chronophotography and, more specifically, ornithography.
Chronophotography is an old photographic technique from the Victorian era that captures and prints movement in several frames. These prints can then be organised as celluloid animations or layered into a single frame. To do this, he uses a series of different cameras, originally created and used for the scientific study of movement, but which are now considered the predecessors of cinematography and motion pictures. Edward James Muggeridge was one of its pioneers.
As a photographer, Xavi Bou has created Ornitographies, images that capture the flight path of birds using the technique of chronophotography to document the movement and pattern of their dance in the sky by superimposing different frames.
Interestingly, to perfect his technique and his photographs, he uses high-speed film cameras that can capture 60 to 90 high-resolution photographs per second. The resulting works are tangible examples of the balance between art and science.

Bou's purpose is to use visual poetry to spread awareness of the importance of caring for the environment, inviting viewers to perceive the world with the same curious and innocent gaze of the children we once were. The approach Bou uses to create the scenes in his Ornitographies is non-invasive. In fact, he rejects distant study, resulting in images of organic forms that stimulate the imagination.
His photographs capture the flight of a wide variety of birds in different parts of the country and abroad. His gaze manages to trace that invisible trail in the human eye that birds create as they fly through the sky.