Algorithmic Swarm Study (Triptych) / II, 2021

Screens, computer, sensors, swarm algorithm: breed II, custom tracking system

 

Since 2007, Random International’s Swarm Study series has experimented with collective behaviour and the human instinct to engage emotionally with possibly sentient, artificial entities. Through the expressive power of movement, the swarm generates an apparent agency.

Algorithmic Swarm Study (Triptych) / II acts as a synchronised looking glass into the world of a life form that is aware of the physical boundaries within its own digital habitat. The swarm’s behavioural traits change continually, as it responds to the presence of people in its vicinity.

As with prior works in the series, Algorithmic Swarm Study (Triptych) / II takes its source material from the studio’s own BOID simulations based on Craig Reynolds’s 1986 artificial life programme, one of the earliest digital attempts to simulate flocking behaviour. Through the studies, Random International’s ultimate aim is to better understand how collective intelligence responds to human presence, and how this in turn affects human action and emotion.