Director: Jacklyn Brickman, Sharon Gill

Film: Speculative Speciation: Honeycreeper

Bio: Honeycreeper is a short film that is part of the larger series of Speculative Speciation: Artificial Anagenesis and Creative Cladogenesis by Jacklyn Brickman and Dr. Sharon Gill, 2023-24.
Since the 1600s, more than 160 species of birds have gone extinct. Not only are those extinctions profound losses in and of themselves, but they also represent devastating losses of what could have been. Over time, would these species have changed, evolving into new species not yet seen? Would these species have diversified into many more different and wonderful forms increasing biodiversity? Speculative Speciation: Artificial Anagenesis and Creative Cladogenesis ponders on what could have been, by employing AI to generate new species descended from the extinct ones, highlighting what has been lost in the past, what continues to be lost in the present and may be lost for future generations.

Jacklyn Brickman is a visual artist and educator whose work entangles science fact with fiction to address social and environmental concerns by employing natural entities, processes, and technology. Her work spans installation, video, and performance, with a special interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and social engagement. Fellowships include The National Academy of Sciences, Chaire arts et sciences, Jentel Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Erb Family Foundation. She has exhibited her work internationally. Brickman resides in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the ancestral and contemporary territory of the Council of the Three Fires – the Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. Indigenous nations of the Great Lakes region are also known as the Anishinaabe. She is an Assistant Professor of Kinetic Imaging at Western Michigan University.

Sharon Gill is a sound ecologist and educator, whose research interests include bird communication, impacts of human-driven environmental change on bird song and collective soundscapes, and bird extinctions. In addition to the traditional forms of communicating scientific findings, she uses storytelling and soundwalks to share stories of nature, with the aim to increase awareness, concern, and action for the natural world. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defence, and the Eppley Foundation for Scientific Research. Her art practice centers on weaving, through which she expresses stories of grief and loss, and creative nonfiction, writing about bird extinctions. Gill is a professor of Biological Sciences at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and resides on the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Three Fires Confederacy formed by the Odawa, the Ojibwe, and the Potawatomi.