Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016

In Philippe Parreno’s installation, the screen is an automaton, teeming with life yet created from technology. Animated from hundreds of drawings, each firefly is like a living cell whose lifespan is modelled on the algorithms of mathematician John Horton Conway’s 1970 cellular automaton The Game of Life, a self-replicating robotic system developed to model cell growth. When each firefly’s sequence ends, its fleeting presence is frozen momentarily on the screen before disappearing. By fusing the handmade with technology and science, Parreno’s automaton echoes the cyborgian bodies that recur throughout the exhibition.