Digital #MediaArt(s) Numérique(s)

“Phase=Order” is a kinetic light installation in which 96 screens move, reflect, and organize to create an abstract field of shadow and light. The installation is the physical output of a research into self-organizing processes in nature and programming these nature-like behaviors into artificial material.

Where a lot of research in this field focuses on the rules of behavior within these systems, Phase=Order focuses on the audio-visual beauty of these phenomena and how to compose an organic choreography based on swarm behavior. Through studying the elements of light, sound and movement the work is created as a multi-sensorial experience.

www.macular.nl

First inspired by the mysterious and mathematical qualities of a caterpillars crawl, artist Reuben Margolin creates large-scale kinetic sculptures that use pulleys and motors to recreate the complex movements and structures we see in nature. Margolin takes to the PopTech stage to share some of his extraordinary mechanical installations.

Self-propelling beach animals like Animaris Percipiere have a stomach . This consists of recycled plastic bottles containing air that can be pumped up to a high pressure by the wind. This is done using a variety of bicycle pump, needless to say of plastic tubing. Several of these little pumps are driven by wings up at the front of the animal that flap in the breeze. It takes a few hours, but then the bottles are full. They contain a supply of potential wind. Take off the cap and the wind will emerge from the bottle at high speed. The trick is to get that untamed wind under control and use it to move the animal. For this, muscles are required. Beach animals have pushing muscles which get longer when told to do so. These consist of a tube containing another that is able to move in and out. There is a rubber ring on the end of the inner tube so that this acts as a piston. When the air runs from the bottles through a small pipe in the tube it pushes the piston outwards and the muscle lengthens. The beach animal's muscle can best be likened to a bone that gets longer. Muscles can open taps to activate other muscles that open other taps, and so on. This creates control centres that can be compared to brains.

"Orbita"-installation consists of a stainless steel ball 40 cm of diameter slowly moving around circular stainless steel tracks 8 m of diameter. In the centre point of the tracks there is a single light bulb, the only light in the space, which casts a shadow of the moving ball to the surrounding walls. The sound of the rolling ball is picked up with contact microphones attached to the tracks. Then it is amplified and played back real time through speakers in the corners of the exhibition space.

The constant movement of the ball is possible because of gravitational pull and minimal friction. There are three servo motors along the tracks on equal distance of each other pulling the tracks closer together just when the ball is passing by. This lifts the ball a little and it starts to run "downhill" where the tracks are wider from each other, gathering more speed. This extra speed is enough to keep the ball rolling until the next servo motor.

New cinetic installation by Laurent Bolognini in Porto Cervo. This prototype was exhibited and used for performance by French artist in Summer 2012.

Laurent Bolognini was born in Saint Germain en Laye (France) in 1959. After studies at the "Societé Française de Photographie," he launched in a career of light designer from 1990 onward. He conceived and realized his first « Galiléographe » in 1998. The device was meant to generate a luminous backdrop for Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini, a concept he created in partnership with Francoise Henry during their collaboration as a group "Les Alternateurs Volants" (1998-2006).

http://www.louise-alexander.com/artis...

36 Ventilators, 4.7m3 Packing Chips Zimoun 2014 Art Museum Lugano / Museo d'Arte di Lugano, Switzerland Limonaia Villa Saroli, April 26 - July 11, 2014 http://www.zimoun.net http://www.mdam.ch _ Text…

Created for the Saint Sauveur chapel in Caen, Caten is a levitating sculpture, determined by gravity and guiding the evolution of a sound composition.

300 fine wires suspended from two ropes, connected themselves at each end to a slowly rotating arm, form an evanescent surface which interacts with the architecture.

By a symbolic mirror effect, the curves of the wires, created by the gravitational force, reflect the shapes of the church arches. Caten opposes the ephemeral to the eternal, the movement to the static, and produce a tension between the lightness and the millenary stability of the space.

The sound composition is inspired by the medieval solmisation prayers, especially the first verse of "Ut Queant Laxis", also known as the "hymn to St John the Baptist", used in the eleventh century to determine the names of the notes of the scale used in latin countries.
At each turn, the engines emit one of the first 4 notes of the scale (Ut, Re, Mi, Fa), creating a sequence of intervals, constantly reconfigured. Low frequencies resonate in the space and emphazise the transcendental character of a place once dedicated to faith.
The name is derived from the term catenary, which describes the plane curve formed by a rope hanging between two points.

Caten was produced for the festival Interstice, with the support of the Station MIR.
festival-interstice.net
station-mir.com