SWARM STUDY (GLASS) / I, 2017

Glass sheets, embedded LEDs, metal Frame, power supplies, computer, driver electronics, custom software, cabling
44 x 99 x 40 cm

An organism, made manifest through light, lives inside the layers of the sculpture. Captured within the sheets of glass, the lights behave as though they are individual living things, autonomously moving together. Swarm Study (Glass) / I is a point of departure from the on-going Swarm Study series, in which RANDOM INTERNATIONAL have been exploring collective behaviour as expressed through motion since 2008. Recent paths of inquiry into distributed intelligence and spontaneous order have shed new light of the idea of the swarm, imbuing it with a sense of ambiguity. The swarm in the glass is tighter and more dense than in prior Swarm Study works. It lingers in the depths of the piece, appearing in a free-flowing manner as it moves throughout the piece. At the same time, the organic nature of the movement is truncated, abstracted and disrupted when viewed from different perspectives around the sides of the glass sheets.