Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016
Oct 28, 2016–Feb 5, 2017
Philippe Parreno
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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.
Philippe Parreno (b. 1964), With a Rhythmic Instinction to be Able to Travel Beyond Existing Forces of Life, 2014
Installation view of Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 28, 2016–February 5, 2017). Philippe Parreno (b. 1964), With a Rhythmic Instinction to be Able to Travel Beyond Existing Forces of Life, 2014. LEDscreen with automated computer system and sound. Collection of the artist; courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels. Photograph by Ron Amstutz