balenciaga collaboration
A 25 minute video loop with previously unreleased tracks by DJ Hell, made in collaboration with Balenciaga.

Here is a dramatic tension in his work between the real and the imagined in his use of often-appropriated digital objects to create virtual landscapes, which frequently contain elements – animals, machines, fragments of videogames – that are recognisable from our day to day life. This creates a symbiotic relationship between the digital and the real. In a very real way digital space has now become an intangible reality. The worlds built by Robak have a distinctly cinematic sensibility that hyperbolises the shine and dramatic effects of 3D rendered animation. The aesthetic of his work is supremely important, drawing the viewer into a truly alluring, indulgent and strangely gratifying environment. There is a further challenge to the void between high-art and the worlds of 3D animation and gaming, in the intersection between depiction and simulation. This can be partially attributed to the vernacular of advertising Robak is so proficient at utilising.

Sunshowers
(AI) infinite simulations
FILE FESTIVAL SP 2019
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‘Sunshowers’ is the third in our series of real-time animation artworks. It is inspired by the opening chapter of Akira Kurosawa’s film Dreams which follows a young boy as he explores a forest and stumbles across a fox wedding (Kitsune no Yomeiri). Our piece explores ideas of animism and techno-animism by assigning life in the form of artificial intelligence to all of the objects, both natural and man-made, within the virtual world. The piece unfolds in real time with the characters themselves deciding which paths they will follow.

Ritual
An undisclosed location. Dry land under a scorching sun. Something abominable has happened here in recent memory. Now a ritual is taking place. The remains of what was once human are flickering in darkness. Nature is reclaiming what is hers. She is savage and unforgiving. She is laughing at us. Her sinister laughter echoes in the emptiness. Ritual re-imagines the notion of site-specificity within the mediated landscape. The digital and physical work for this exhibition sit in a forgotten mining town somewhere in the California desert. The viewer is invited to interact with Triantafyllidis’ new live simulation, sculptures and custom electronics blurring the line between the real life and online experience

sofi

in analysis of the modern skyscraper there is traditionally an aesthetic agenda that localizes itself in a “shoes” or “hat” location. The tower typology has ignored the possibility of a center distortion. This distortion acts as an aesthetic element as well as an organizational(programmatic) locator. By designing from the middle out there is a chance for the building to better blend with its context by keeping the processional elements in the center. Entrance and roof conditions mimic their tower brothers and give a moments rest in the exuberance of design. This proposal creates a center distortion and layers form through a simulation of gravity and the“claspyness” of the outer skin. The inner void acts as a way of creating a Secretary oriented office program rather than a traditional first floor security, freeing up the center of the building to the public. The project looks to rationalize itself through components rather than a monolithic form.

Inextinguishable fire
The title of the piece references Harun Farocki’s 1969 film of the same name, which approaches the impossible task of effectively depicting the horror of napalm on film. Cassils’s gesture of self-immolation speaks to both the desire for–and the impossibility of–knowing such horror, even while decisively aiming to approach it. Though the stunt is a simulation of violence, it still presents real danger. This possibly volatile situation–and the attempt to control it–is captured to create an image where danger, empathy for those experiencing violence, and the privilege of removal from such circumstance operate simultaneously in one transparent performance.

Les trois Grâces

file festival
“Les Trois Grâces” is a presence and corporeality simulation in virtual reality. Exposing the underlying power struggle implied within touch, this piece explores the trespassing  of bodily frontiers and territoriality. As a sculpture, its object is not matter, but our relationship to the other.
It offers a troubling experience of intimate proportions.

‘SnP’, 2018, recycled plastic, injection moulded

“Widrig’s art breaks down the boundaries between disciplines; borrowing tools traditionally associated with one industry and using them in other fields, in often unanticipated and exciting ways. Widrig uses computer simulation processes and advanced technologies adopted from the special effects business to create sculptural 3D-printed craftwork—digital designs materialize into intricate sculptures in glass or recycled plastic and furniture pieces with impeccable undulated thin surfaces,” Devid Gualandris

asphyxia
The performance is centered in an eloquent choreography that stresses the desire to be expressive without bounds. Motion data was captured using inexpensive sensors and that data paved the way through an extensive number of steps. Once all the scanned point cloud data were combined, they were used as the base for the creative development on the piece. A series of iterative studies on styles followed and several techniques and dynamic simulations were then applied using a number 3D tools for various results.

“Entropy Wrangler,” Ian Cheng’s 2013 exhibition at Off Vendome in Dusseldorf, was an excellent introduction to the logic behind this artist’s practice. The centerpiece was a large projection in the gallery’s basement described as “a live computer simulation that changes and evolves, forever.” Like all of Cheng’s simulations, it was programmed with motion capture techniques that register the physical movements of performers that are then translated onto digital bodies. These bodies coexist as individual entities subject to the laws and dynamics of a causal, virtual world: avatars of people and common objects, like hammers and basketball players, rendered in basic three-dimensional form and caught in the zero gravity of the digital screen

Test Studies
In the 20th century, the film industry largely monopolized the representation of human feelings, whereas in the 21st century, the video game industry engages our emotions through participation. At least that is what Ed Fornieles is trying to demonstrate with his video installation Test Studies in which three-dimensional simulations of a role-playing game are juxtaposed with the emotional comments of those who experience it.
video

Life after bob
Ian Cheng’s Life After BOB is an episodic anime series built in the Unity game engine and presented live in real-time. Bridging the artist’s interest in simulation’s capacity to generate emergent surprising phenomena, with cinematic storytelling’s capacity to evoke deep psychological truths, Life After BOB imagines a future world in which our minds are co-inhabited by AI entities. Life After BOB asks: How will life lived with AI transform the archetypal scripts that guide our sense of a meaningful existence?

FLORALIA I
Inspired by the writings of Donna J. Haraway, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Greg Egan, the work plunges us into a speculative future, where samples of then extinct plant species are preserved and displayed in a virtual archive room. Through editing and visual strategies, this archive room is sporadically transformed under the effect of interference caused by the memory emanating from the listed plants, revealing traces of a past that continues to haunt the place. Floralia is a simulation of ecosystems born from the fusion of technology and organic matter, where past and future coexist in a perpetual tension of the present.

Cloud Osaka
Envisioned as a high-resolution urban interchange, Cloud Osaka embodies Biothing’s approach to complex design synthesis across multiple orders of scale. Due to its central position in the city, a high convergence of users and one of Asia’s densest transportation nodes found in the adjacent JR Osaka Station, the key driver for the project was to understand 2.5 million people traversing the site every day. This is nearly 10 times the number of daily passengers at the busiest airports in the world. Such an extreme volume of pedestrian traffic, compounded by other forms of traffic in the area, warranted choosing computational physics simulation ordinarily used to simulate systems like river flows; indeed, a key driver for the project became the concept of a “river of people”.

BOB

Cheng’s work explores mutation, the history of human consciousness and our capacity as a species to relate to change. Drawing on principles of video game design, improvisation and cognitive science, Cheng develops live simulations – virtual ecosystems of infinite duration, populated with agents who are programmed with behavioural drives but left to self-evolve without authorial intent, following the unforgiving causality found in nature.

Photo: Andrea Rossetti

Morphogenetic Creations
Created by a mathematician, digital artist and Emmy award winning supervisor of computer generated effects – Andy Lomas, Morphogenetic Creations is a collection of works that explore the nature of complex forms that can be produced by digital simulation of growth systems. These pieces start with a simple initial form which is incrementally developed over time by adding iterative layers of complexity to the structure.The aim is to create structures emergently: exploring generic similarities between many different forms in nature rather than recreating any particular organism. In the process he is exploring universal archetypal forms that can come from growth processes rather than top-down externally engineered design.Programmed using C++ with CUDA, the series use a system of growth by deposition: small particles of matter are repeatedly deposited onto a growing structure to build incrementally over time. Rules are used to determine how new particles are created, and how they move before being deposited. Small changes to these rules can have dramatic effects on the final structure, in effect changing the environment in which the form is grown. To create these works, Andy uses the GPU as a compute device rather than as a display device. All the data is held in memory on the GPU and various kernel functions are called to do things like apply forces to the cells, make cells split, and to render the cells using ray-tracing. The simulations and rendering for each of the different animated structures within this piece take about 12 hours to run, Andy explains. By the end of the simulations there are over 50,000,000 cells in each structure.The Cellular Forms use a more biological model, representing a simplified system of cellular growth. Structures are created out of interconnected cells, with rules for the forces between cells, as well as rules for how cells accumulate internal nutrients. When the nutrient level in a cell exceeds a given threshold the cell splits into two, with both the parent and daughter cells reconnecting to their immediate neighbours. Many different complex organic structures are seen to arise from subtle variations on these rules, creating forms with strong reminiscences of plants, corals, internal organs and micro-organisms.

Cyberia

Performance & live computer generated simulation

A postmodern fairytale, Cyberia takes place somewhere in a cold distant East, stretching between and endless imaginary realm and a vast physical space. It is a westwards journey towards a promised future with no arrival and no return. There is no here or there, only a twilight zone between a departure point and a simulated destination. Between digital video projections and a physical setting, using the mechanics of a video-game engine with a motion capture suit, Cyberia is the simulation of an endless pre-climax state where a performer and a CG avatar dance as one to the rhythms of an imaginary West. In a world oversaturated by digital data –mysticism and paranormal are as popular as ever. Emerging technologies are increasingly incorporated in a form of postmodern spiritualism, as Arthur C. Clarke points out: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Tele-Present Water
This installation draws information from the intensity and movement of the water in a remote location. Wave data is being collected in real-time from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy station 46075 Shumagin Islands Alaska (53°54’39” N 160°48’21” W). The wave intensity and frequency is scaled and transferred to the mechanical grid structure resulting in a simulation of the physical effects caused by the movement of water from this distant location.

Hash2ash
Installation touches on the themes of selfie-culture, and the fear of permanently losing the digital records of our lives due to technical failures, impermanence of data storage, or simply because of the obsolescence of the old digital file formats. Even with such compulsive overproduction of the images of ourselves we might end up with nothing but the blank memories of our past. Even the data on ourselves will eventually fade away… The installation consist of the display that prompts you to take a selfie on your phone, which it renders in digital particles on its large 1×1 meter screen. Then a moment later, your face scatters and falls apart and the real black gravel starts to fall at the bottom of the screen in perfect synchrony with the digital simulation. Gradually a dark mound builds up at the foot of the construction.

New Humans
In New Humans, emergent gatherings of synthetic humans rise from the surface of a black ferrofluid pool. Appearing to morph like a supernatural life form, these dynamic clusters of magnetic liquid produced by machine learning processes are images of communities of synthetic people–hybrid profiles modeled from actual DNA, fitness, and dating profile data sets sourced from public and leaked caches. The work questions how we can radically conceptualize the “user profile” to embody a self whose bounds are indefinable and multiple. Generative algorithm using machine learning (GAN, T-SNE) and fluid simulation (Navier Stokes), countour generation (OpenCV), user profile data caches (DNA, fitness, and dating), software production (Processing), ferrofluid, custom electromagnet matrix, custom PCB control system, computer, steel, wood, aluminum.

Printed Paper Actuator
“Printed Paper Actuator is the project that achieves a low cost, reversible and electrical actuation and sensing method. This method that requires simple and easy fabrication steps enables our paper actuator to achieve different types of motion and even various electrical sensing abilities: touch sensing, slider, and self-bending-angle detection. We introduce a software tool that assists the design, simulation, and printing toolpath generation.” Morphing Matter Lab

Samplingplong
File Festival

Randomly selected, acoustically usable finds (electronic junk, relays, plastic toys,compressed air valves, pneumatically operated components) are combined with cables and tubes. Via a device controlled by computer, they are turned into interactive instruments. An improvised ensemble evolves, from which – per mouse-over and mouse-click -short miniature compositions of dense rhythmic clicks, hisses, whirs, hums and crackles can be elicited. A tapestry of sound bursts forth from the floral-like web of cables and tubes. The installation can be used by the projected mouse-cursor: rolling over the improvised instruments causes small sound events. Activating the installation by rolling over its parts enables the user to play spontaneous improvisations. Clicking these objects starts short programs of loop-like compositions. Small “techno-compositions en miniature”, rhythmic patterns of analog (or real) sounds; a physical low-tech simulation of electronic, digital music, perhaps an ironic comment on interactivity.

Deltu
Deltu is a delta robot with a personality that interacts with humans via two iPads. Depending on its mood, it plays with the user who is faced with an artificial intelligence simulation, who appreciates the small pleasures of life, sometimes too much. The relationship we have with robots/AI that have been created to enhance our performance, but have become a source of learning, is unique and exciting. The android’s place in society has not yet been defined and remains to be determined; for me it is the best source of inspiration.

KVADRAT Exploration
R&D for Danish textile company Kvadrat that predominantly revolves around the idea of coating fragments of furniture with fabric rather than falling back on the more commonly seen real world simulation of fabrics. Employing a fluid, almost water-like approach to motion we see abstract furniture fragments emerging from the fabric; its amorphous forms continually re-configuring itself for a graphic, textural delight.

After Party

(AI) infinite simulations

‘After Party’ is an animation about two young girls, Ada and Milica. They find themselves in a strange space where an adult party is happening. With every new simulation their personalities evolve in unpredictable ways: between Childhood and Adolescence, Refined and Savage. Our digital work consists of creating artificial environments in the form of real-time animation using our own custom software, where artificial intelligence characters interact with each other as well as with the virtual world that surrounds them. These pieces are usually inspired by stories or myths found in different cultures.

FILE SAO PAULO 2019

Everything
FILE GAMES 2017
Everything is an interactive experience where everything you see is a thing you can be, from animals to planets to galaxies and beyond. Travel between outer and inner space, and explore a vast, interconnected universe of things without enforced goals, scores, or tasks to complete. Everything is a procedural, AI-driven simulation of the systems of nature, seen from the points of view of everything in the Universe.

The weight of light
Light, as we usually interpret it, is an element without mass and gravity. For “the weight of light” a physics engine simulates the kinetic forces of a moving object. This mass is projected on a wave shaped structure in virtual space. The moving object is represented as a light particle in physical space. Gravity, mass, density and friction affect velocity and acceleration of these light particles. As the particles movement is based on a simulation, it does not have to adhere to the physical realities we know from everyday life. Therefore the installation goes beyond expected behaviour. Thus the matter of light traverses a reinterpretation of our known reality.

rotary tumble
File Festival
“Rotary Tumble” is an experiment in projection mapping onto a moving tangible object. We start with a freely spinning disc that viewers can touch and spin by hand. With an optical rotary encoder the system detects the exact speed, direction, and position of the spinning disc in real-time. This feedback data is used to drive a physics simulation of tumbling shapes which is then projection mapped back onto the spinning disc itself.

Кристофа Сенсена
dead man float
CAVEman 3-D Virtual Patient Is a Holodeck For the Human Body

The virtual-reality rig at the University of Calgary visualizes aspirin’s journey through the body in 3-D. First stop: the stomach and intestines [red], where the drug is absorbed. Next up is the bloodstream [light green] and finally the kidneys [dark green], which flush by-products into the urine
In this image, three stereoscopic projectors mounted on the floor and one on the ceiling display a computer-animated body. Looking through the goggles, researchers can watch its bloodstream turn from white to red as aspirin travels through it. Sensen hopes to develop computer simulations that will model the progression of diseases like Alzheimer’s and diabetes and help scientists quite literally look for cures. Updated to reflect what’s happening inside a real patient, the technology could also help doctors diagnose and treat cancer. “You could stand inside your patient,” Sensen says, “and see how big the tumor is, how to treat it, and what the outcome will be.”

when you are close to me i shiver
sound design: Alexander Martinz
“when you are close to me I shiver” is an algorithmically controlled live simulation, a real-time generated virtual reality that takes place in a version of the future in which humans, out of desperation, gather in masses on the last remaining piece of land. Inspired by the walrus scene in the documentary “Our Planet” narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, the project proposes an intense scenario encompassing our environmental and personal crises. It reflects on how we identify and connect ourselves in different realities while addressing the human condition in a world in ecological and therefore social crisis. On the tablets, virtual cameras scan the environment from various point of views, like surveillance drones. On the main screen, a similar camera randomly targets and focuses on different situations while a familiar voice-over narrates the tragic story.

The design of a global atmospheric research center employs the sphere for both its iconic and volumetric qualities. . .
A set of spheres are repeatedly scaled, each tangent to the last, and dissected by orthogonal cuts to create distinctive spaces with both soft and hard thresholds that suit the unique functions of each program. The complex contains: simulation laboratories; a research lab; control center; administrative offices; auditorium; and maintenance and public spaces. Users enjoy a binary experience when inhabiting the convex and concave surface of the spheres as they circulate between them in a spiral manner. The contrast between orthogonal and spherical, in addition to material and atmospheric transformations, reflects and celebrates the nature of the building as a research institute studying the air of the future.

Atmospheric Research Center
The design of a global atmospheric research center employs the sphere for both its iconic and volumetric qualities. . . A set of spheres are repeatedly scaled, each tangent to the last, and dissected by orthogonal cuts to create distinctive spaces with both soft and hard thresholds that suit the unique functions of each program. The complex contains: simulation laboratories; a research lab; control center; administrative offices; auditorium; and maintenance and public spaces.

Waterfall
Waterfall Sculpture created using fluids simulation (particle based simulations. These particles are influenced in a multitude of ways by point-based nodes, known as daemons, which can simulate gravity, fluids, water surfaces flow and collision.

Universe of Water Particles
Universe of Water Particles is a waterfall created in a computer-simulated environment. A virtual rock is first sculpted and computer-generated water consisting of hundreds of thousands of water particles is then poured onto it. The computer calculates the movement of these particles to produce an accurate waterfall simulation that flows in accordance to physical laws. Next, 0.1 percent of the particles are selected and lines are drawn in relation to them. The sinuousness of the lines depends on the overall interaction among the water particles and forms the magnificent cascade seen on screen.

Pieta

Поиск сущности и существования продолжается в недавних картинах Ли «Пластиковая рыба». Настоящая живая рыба, ловящая искусственную рыбу для выживания, а затем похищенная в результате собственной попытки выжить, и человек, который держал бы удочку между ними двумя, этот суровый парадокс существования не является ни мечтой Чжуан Цу, ни мечтой Жана Бодрийяра. Simulacres et Simulation. Возможно, это жестокая боль, как вечное наказание, которое должно нести на плечах все живые существа. Сериал «Пьета, жалко» будет создан в двух версиях: «Пьета: ненависть к себе» и «Пьета: самосмерть». В этой серии скульптур используется как форма (скульптуры), так и сама формованная фигура, при этом форма представляет собой Деву Марию, а формованную фигуру – Иисуса. В «Пьете: ненависть к себе» эти две фигуры злобно сражаются, как бойцы К-1, а в «Пьете: самосмерть» образ Девы Марии удерживает мертвых, слепил Иисуса. Этот сериал метафорически разворачивает противоречия человеческого существования и мрачное варварство цивилизации. Подобно внезапному летнему ливню, работы Ли Ёнбэка несут в себе холод, которого невозможно избежать.

Sunburn Ultraviolet Archetypes

For Citarella, objects are sites of dissimulation, never quite what they seem. When taken as a whole, aspects of his solo debut can appear overly oblique, but his work has a refreshing lack of archness that stands in contrast to that of many of his so-called post-Internet contemporaries. Instead, Citarella seems fully committed to the pristine surfaces made possible by modern technology, discovering there a kind of transcendent blankness bordering on the spiritual.
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flicker

Flicker is an immersive electronic environment of generative image and sound. A collaborative work with Oliver Bown. Based on biological models of firefly behaviour, Flicker generates an ever shifting rhythmic, meditative environment to the viewer. Flicker uses 4 channels of synchronised high definition video and 8 channels of sound to immerse the viewer in a phenomenologically rich environment of artificial life. The work is a large-scale agent-based simulation, with each agent providing a rhythmic pulse at regular intervals. Agents try to synchronise their pulse with other agents in their immediate neighbourhood. The collective pulsations of groups of local agents are spatially sonified with int exhibition space. Over time, large groups synchronise at different rates, leading to complex visual and aural structures, syncopating and constant shifting in to a long term complexity.

Marionettes
FILE FESTIVAL 

“Marionettes” is a seven-minute computer animation about collapse. Marionettes are controlled by strings: if there is no string, they collapse. Nobody animates the body. If nobody animates the body, it will be animated by natural forces. Mass. Gravity. Collision. Randomization. In this animation, the animator does not animate in traditional terms. Thus, we might say it is an anti-animation.
The forces that control the movements of the marionettes are calculated by physical simulation algorithms. Therefore, these movements are strictly mathematical ones. They are dramatic, too. They visualize collapse in its physical and – amazingly enough from puppets animated by machines – psychological sense.

bionic research pavilion

The Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) of the University of Stuttgart have constructed another bionic research pavilion. The project is part of a successful series of research pavilions which showcase the potential of novel design, simulation and fabrication processes in architecture. The project was planned and constructed within one and a half years by students and researchers within a multi-disciplinary team of architects, engineers and biologists.
The focus of the project is a parallel bottom-up design strategy for the biomimetic investigation of natural fiber composite shells and the development of novel robotic fabrication methods for fiber reinforced polymer structures. The aim was the development of a winding technique for modular, double layered fiber composite structures, which reduces the required formwork to a minimum while maintaining a large degree of geometric freedom. Therefore, functional principles of natural lightweight structures were analyzed and abstracted in cooperation with the University of Tübingen and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Through the development of a custom robotic fabrication method, these principles were transferred into a modular prototype pavilion.

As We May Feel
file festival

“As We May Feel” A parody of the 1945 text “As We May Think”, by Vannevar Bush What enduring benefits did science and technology bring to human beings? First of all, science and technology have extended the humans’ control on their material environment, helping them to perfect their food, their clothes, their dwelling, and gave them more security, allowing to live above the level of mere subsistence. Later on, they have permitted a wider knowledge of the biological processes that occur within our bodies, allowing the control of a more healthy and lasting life, always promising an enhancement of mental health. Finally, they contribute to the effectiveness of our communication. We have therefore a reason to live beyond survival — abundant health and efficient communication. And how do we deal with our existential feelings and conflicts? We don’t have time for our feelings, we can no longer ruminate them. We bury them in secret wishes without bigger consequences. Should we care more for our feelings? Negligence has been our way of cleaning our lives of sentimental values. When we cannot sweep them, we zip them and eventually access them to solve conflicts and/or to organize our thoughts. This project offers the access, through a click, to a central that points to a series of paths toward “As we may feel”. The content of this simulation of a phone center has as its aim to create an encyclopedia of existential feelings and conflicts that represent human life in contemporary society. Welcome to our call center!

Magnavox Odyssey
Even if you’re a devoted fan of video games, there’s a decent chance you’re not familiar with the name Ralph H. Baer. This should be considered gamer high treason considering Baer’s importance in creating the concept of home video games and the vast, varied entertainment ecosystem now built upon them. Despite being the one to push the dominoes toward an industry that currently makes billions of dollars annually, the bulk of the gaming community has largely forgotten about him.Now a 91-year-old widower, the German-born Baer is the inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first video game console. The Odyssey is predated in the games-on-screens space only by experiments like Willy Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two and the coin-op dud Computer Space. But Baer also has a long and distinguished record as an engineer and inventor. The list of patents and gadgets in his name encompasses surgical-cutting equipment, “muscle-toning pulse generators,” submarine-tracking radar systems, video simulations for trainee pilots, talking books and talking doormats, iconic ‘80s toys like SIMON and Laser Command, and even launch displays and a lunar-resistant camera grip for the Saturn V and Apollo 11 space programs.

Beautiful Dances (simulation)

Жюстин Khamara

„Bis vor kurzem habe ich meine Fotocollagen erstellt, indem ich Hunderte von Bildern auf Film aufgenommen, fotografische Elemente von Hand aus ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext herausgeschnitten und mit Klebstoff zusammengeklebt habe. Ich war interessiert an der Beziehung des Fotos zu seinem Thema und daran, wie digitale Technologien das Verständnis des fotografischen Bildes verändern können. In der Installation Thud (2003) haben veraltete Produktionsmethoden eine Umgebung geschaffen, die die digitale High-Tech-Simulation „nachahmt“. Meine Illusion war buchstäblich hauchdünn – alle Oberfläche keine Tiefe – und erinnerte an Erinnerung, Verlust und ein nervenaufreibendes Gefühl der Sterblichkeit.

axiom and simulation

Rotary Tumble
FILE FESTIVAL