A flock of spheres shape their path within an invisible matrice while acting together as one diffuse body. Alternately leading and following, they weave an intricate web of relationships, where every action that one takes has repercussions on the rest of the flock.
We just go round and around is according to the artist a work that raises more questions than it answers. Installation is the last phase of a collaborative work spanning three countries over three and a half years to compile an algorithm that would allow a set of self-propelled robots to create flocking patterns without a centralised system.
Despite being a technologically rich installation, We just go round and around carefully hides it. The algorithm and the robots hosted within smooth material shells do not speak about themselves but point to more fundamental organisational laws. The perfect spheres, reminding the audience of BB8 from Star Wars can be found in megastructures like planets and the microscopic world of the atom, are an expression of these organisational laws.
By obscuring the underlying mechanisms of the installation, Hrvoje Hiršl calls the audience to uncover its principles and discovers its inner workings. Soon the observer is set to mentally test out the limits of such a system and wonder whether he or she is also part of it?
The installation is a prototype and Highlight Delft will be the first time it is at public display.
We just go round and around is a flock of perfect spheres slowly drifting across space in absolute synchronicity.
About Hrvoje Hiršl
Hrvoje Hiršl is an artist, researcher and designer. His artistic research focuses on the intersection of contemporary art and media art discourse. The recurrent themes of his work include limitations of the medium, automation, complex systems and cybernetics. He is currently working on a book for the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam to be published in 2021.
Thanks to
In collaboration with Crossing Parallels and Stimulerings Fonds Creatieve Industrie
Special thanks to Inholland Hogeschool, LARICS Laboratory University of Zagreb, Republic of Croatia Ministry of Culture and Media and Metamedia
