»SWARM STUDY / IX
by RANDOM INTERNATIONAL (2016)«
Transformation Hauptbahnhof Chemnitz
Grüntuch Ernst Architects
Random International
Jan Bitter Fotografie
Summer break: 28. July to 20. August
4 June to 17 September 2016
Thursday to Saturday from 12 to 6 pm
Grüntuch Ernst Lab
Former Jewish Girls’ School
Auguststr. 11-13, 10117 Berlin
With the realisation of the integrated facade light installation Swarm Study / IX, the transformation of Chemnitz station is complete. The artwork will open at Hauptbahnhof Chemnitz in September 2016.
UK-based artist collective Random International have created an artwork that inhabits the entire facade of Chemnitz station. The artists’ largest work to date, Swarm Study / IX translates the acrobatic efficiency of flocking birds into light.
Since 2010, Random International’s ongoing Swarm Studies have been exploring the intelligence in motion of self-organising systems through increasingly dematerialised, sensory environments. Evolving from this, Swarm Study / IX invites an experience of architecture as something animate and integrated with surrounding natural phenomena and human activity.
This exhibition presents the first documentary photography of Swarm Study / IX and Grüntuch Ernst Architects’ transformation of Chemnitz main station by German architectural photographer Jan Bitter, alongside an immersive, large-scale video projection of the artwork in situ. The history of Random International’s Swarm Studies is surveyed through the documentation of earlier, three-dimensional works in the series ranging from small-scale editions to large-scale public commissions.
Random International is a collaborative studio for experimental practice within contemporary art. Founded in 2005 by Hannes Koch (born 1975, Germany) and Florian Ortkrass (born 1975, Germany), the studio now includes a larger team in London and Berlin. Questioning aspects of identity and autonomy in the post-digital age, Random International’s work invites active participation.