BIRD: Webcam Augury

BIRD messages 💬 💬 map

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Select a Webcam:

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You've landed at BIRD:

Bird Informed Remote Divination

Gaze upon the Templum: The Webcam Augury platform allows you to search for insights by watching birds fly on public webcams. This ancient practice of seeking knowledge through bird flight patterns is called augury

How It Works:

Choose a webcam featuring the sky, birds, or even planes.
Ask the augur a question that's on your mind.
The augurs will then collaborate with you and ask you to observe the birds.
When you discuss the presence of birds you can see, the AI analyses patterns based on their movements and other elements.
The Augur will then interpret the omens to provide you with a fortune.

Your participation contributes to this collaborative exploration of divination and technology.

BIRD / Webcam Augury is part of a University of Bristol doctoral research project by Gaston Welisch. This work was commissioned by the AIXDesign collective.

For access, the site requires your consent; you must be 18 or over to take part.

Pseudonymous data including approximate location, the messages you send, and your interactions are recorded for research purposes by using cookies. Because records are stored without direct identifiers, it may not be possible to remove your data unless clearly identifiable personal information was entered by mistake.

Generated responses and interactions will contribute to research, publications, and exhibitions.

For more information, email Gaston Welisch or the Bristol research governance team.

Participant information →

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Participant information

Participation is voluntary. You can stop using the site at any time.

Who is responsible for the research?

Researcher: Gaston Welisch. This project is conducted as part of my doctoral research project at the University of Bristol. The site does not ask for your name. However, it records pseudonymous research data linked to a cookie-based visitor ID.

Cookies

The site uses cookies to remember that you have consented and to connect your interactions to a pseudonymous visitor record. These cookies are used for research, site functionality, consent recording, and security.

How the data will be used

The data collected includes:

your consent status
approximate location, such as region/country inferred from IP address
messages sent to the chatbot

Please do not enter directly identifying or sensitive personal information into the chatbot or question fields.

The data will be used to support my doctoral research into AI, divination, and augury. It will be used to:

analyse how visitors interact with the site
study how people respond to AI-generated auguries
support academic writing, presentations, exhibitions, and the doctoral thesis
produce pseudonymised examples, summaries, and findings, and be collated into a less granular open-data dataset for other researchers

AI systems and third-party services

Some interactions are processed using external AI services (OpenAI) or technical services (PythonAnywhere server) needed to operate the site. This includes sending chatbot messages, prompts, or generated text to an AI provider so the system can respond.

The data is not kept by OpenAI beyond temporary logging; it is not used to train OpenAI services.

Data storage

Data is kept on a server hosted by PythonAnywhere. The data will be made open access once stripped of all identifiers upon the end of the doctorate (estimated October 2028). Operational records on the live site will be retained while the project website / artwork remains active.

Withdrawal and deletion

You can stop using the site at any time. Because the site does not ask for your name, it may not be possible to identify your record for requested deletion later. We may be able to locate your data if you give detail such as the date, time, and content of an interaction.

To ask about withdrawal or deletion, contact Gaston Welisch.

For questions about the research project, contact:

Bristol Research Governance Team

Bristol Data Protection Office