NEST

Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey
Loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey, Marshmallow Laser Feast’s light installation lit the primary performance space within the chapel’s hazy internal dome. Grid-like projections crossed with mobile structures (designed by the architectural practice Studio Weave) as agile bodies crept over, in and through the many lit towers and surfaces. This first act was seen by the audience from the left and right balconies above. The second act, down flights of rope-lined staircases in the concrete basement, was more disorienting, lit only with triangular neon tubing and an eerie glow that seeped from an open door. The style of dance, in keeping with the more rapid and percussive score, by Canadian composer Christopher Mayo and electronic music composer / performer Anna Meredith, confronted the audience and was staged without boundaries dividing the dancers (some of whom were in street clothes) and viewers.

Float
The Floats – or floating sculptures – that Robert Breer took up producing again at the end of the 1990s, emerged in 1965. The word “float” meaning something floating – a marker, fishing float or buoy – and which also describes those carnival vehicles whose pretend wheels give them the appearance of floating above the tarmac, enabled Robert Breer to apply this principle to works of a new genre. Primary shapes, neutral colours and, for the most recent, an industrial aspect, the Floats were then made with polystyrene, foam, painted plywood, and, more latterly, out of fibreglass. At first glance, these simple structures appear immobile. In fact, they are moving, imperceptibly, within the space they inhabit. Motorised and on mini-rollers – which raise them slightly above ground, giving them an air of weightlessness – they glide unbeknown to the visitor, following random paths that are interrupted by the slightest obstacle that they encounter.

Fiberbots
FIBERBOTS is a digital fabrication platform fusing cooperative robotic manufacturing with abilities to generate highly sophisticated material architectures. The platform can enable design and digital fabrication of large-scale structures with high spatial resolution leveraging mobile fabrication nodes, or robotic ‘agents’, designed to tune the material make-up of the structure being constructed on the fly as informed by their environment.

Morphs
MORPHs, short for Mobile Reconfigurable Polyhedra, are motive architectural structures which can crawl and self-assemble in order to encourage social interaction through play. These playful robotic creatures encourage the public to choreograph them into dance routines, assemble them into complex sculptural geometries or else play music at them, which they will play back over time. Groups of people can interact at any one time and eventually develop a dialogue amongst participants, through the use of contemporary digital technology.