Swarm Study/ I

Swarm Study / III, is a unique piece which was made in 2011 by rAndom.
The piece is made out of electronics, Corian, steel frame and computers.
The dimentions are quiet big (123mm x 456mm x 789mm)

For the Victoria & Albert Museum rAndom created a monumental light installation, specific to it’s permanent location above the museum’s Ceramics Staircase.
Swarm Study / III is made up of illuminated brass rods, suspended from the ceiling in an arrangement of four large cubes. Computers following a complex algorithm control this interactive lighting installation.
As visitors move up and down the stairs, so the light follows in swarm-like formations, varying subtly in its intensity.
Swarm Study / III translates collective behavioral patterns found in nature into moving light. Though apparently inanimate, the installation is brought to life by visitors’ activity, engaging them with both the swarm itself and the surrounding space of the Museum. Swarm Study/III is visible from the Architecture Gallery and Ceramics Gallery.
When I first saw it, I knew that was the object that I wanted to work on for several reasons. The first is because ‘Swarm Study/III is a beautiful piece of art which includes an ultra advanced technology that completely exceeded me. And the second reason why I chose it is the fact that it’s especially related to tracking technologies. The idea of Global Positioning System (GPS) is considerably incising those years and it’s a very interesting social phenomenon. I think this topic is really interesting if we accept the fact that with our phones, bank cards, oyster cards etc.. Technologies are able to trace our own moves, facts and can even predict our future. So the question of privacy can be think.

Many long-standing technologies embody the ability to locate and track people. During the last couple of decades of the 20th century, new technologies have been developed with the express purpose of increasing those capabilities. The nature of these technologies is described, and the processes identified whereby they are being applied to the serious detriment of civil freedoms.
The perception arose in the 1960s and 1970s that what were then referred to as 'data processing' technologies had serious implications for personal and social freedoms.

In the following decades, the various information technologies have been developing at a rapid pace.