highlike

Michele Spanghero

Ad lib
The sound sculpture Ad lib. combines a medical machine for automatic pulmonary ventilation with a few organ pipes that play a musical chord to the constant rhythm of the mechanical breath, creating an artificial organ that is metaphorically a mechanical requiem that sounds incessantly. The title of the work Ad lib., an abbreviation of the Latin expression “ad libitum”, is a musical caption that gives the performer discretion of interpretation, allowing for instance to repeat “at will” certain bars of the score. The sculpture aims to refer to the situation in which people, who suffer from critical health conditions, see their survival tied to a breathing machine and, therefore, to the discretion of those who are taking care of them.

Takuya Matsunobu and Yasuaki Kakehi

Coworo
Coworo is an installation with a shape changing liquid that loses its texture under a spotlight and looks almost solid. After a while, bubbles appear on the surface and disappear again, as if it were breathing. The waves gradually change their size, position, and frequency and develop into physical, continual, kinetic, three-dimensional animations that extend beyond the discrete 2D pixel pattern. Through the hybrid combination of the digitally programmed machine and the organic properties of the physical material, the object creates a constant flux of ephemeral shapes and patterns.

PHILIP BEESLEY

菲力浦 畢斯雷

Hylozoic Ground

The project’s title refers to ‘hylozoism’, the ancient belief that all matter has life. Hylozoic Ground offers a vision for a new generation of responsive architecture. The Hylozoic Ground environment can be described as a suspended geotextile that gradually accumulates hybrid soil from ingredients drawn from its surroundings. Akin to the functions of a living system, embedded machine intelligence allows human interaction to trigger breathing, caressing, and swallowing motions and hybrid metabolic exchanges. These empathic motions ripple out from hives of kinetic valves and pores in peristaltic waves, creating a diffuse pumping that pulls air, moisture and stray organic matter through the filtering Hylozoic membranes.