Some art shows have a buzz about them. A new addition to the Moscow Biennale, a mammoth show of contemporary art now running all over the city, will have that when it opens in Artplay on Friday.
London-based design studio rAndom International premieres “Fly,” an installation that in a style typical to the company mixes technology and art. The work consists of a hanging microcamera, representing a fly, attached to eight wires within a 2-meter cube that mimics the movement of the insect in relation to people around it.
Each wire is controlled by a computer that calculates the object’s course in real time, based on the positions and movements of those viewing the exhibit, explained Flo Ortkrass, a founder of rAndom International, which also has an installation at the Victoria & Albert museum in London.
This means that the object’s movement will never become repetitive or entirely predictable. The success of the exhibit relies on the speed and precision of these calculations, so that the “fly” always appears to be reacting to its surroundings.
The exhibit intentionally straddles the line between art and science, Ortkrass said. “You don’t wake up saying you do art or science,” he said. Yes, it’s a complex machine but the “raising of discourse makes it art.”
Still, packed in a box, the fly is safe from any officious art critics who come armed with a fly swatter to discourse with the invention.
“Fly” is on show at Artplay until Oct. 30. 10 Nizhnyaya Syromyatnicheskaya Ulitsa. Metro Chkalovskaya. Tel. 620-0883.
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