Portrait on the Fly (2015-2018)
This is an ongoing digital archive which consists of short video sequences where the moving portraits of well-known media art pioneers, scholars, artists, theorist, gallerist and organizers are turned into swarms of flies.
It is a personal collection of fly portraits of our peers who shape and have shaped the field of media art. It is our personal homage to our friends and colleages and a celebration of the archivist’s melancholic understanding that not everything can be saved. Torn between knowing that media art is a form of art that is linked to decay and destruction, this work also envisions a format that can survive longer.
Portrait on the Fly also exists in the form of a series of plotter drawing portraits on paper. Vector based drawings of digital fly portraits are drawn out on an acid free thick paper with a modern Pen Plotter similar to the ones produced in the 1960’s. Ephemeral moments of interaction are thereby immortalized in the form of graphical drawings.
The interactive installation consists of a monitor that shows a swarm of a few thousand flies. When a person positions himself in front of the monitor, the insects builds up the contour of the person. They begin to arrange and rearange themselves continously, thereby creating a recognizable likeness of the individual.
Fly Simulator (2018)
Fly Simulator is a VR software specifically developed for Ars Electronica 2018 and Speculum Artium in Trbovlje. It is a simulation of a few thousand flies that organize themselves into swarms, creating interesting patterns when users wear the 3D head set.
The user’s head position influences the swarming of the flies which fly over an endless landscape of clouds. Like in a dream the user feels immersed in a strange non Cartesian world where she loses orientation and feels like she has become a fly herself.
Commissioned by Speculum Artium
Represented by the Anika Beckers Galerie Frankfurt, Germany
More works
Interactive Plant Growing (1992)
A-Volve (1994-1995)
Life Spacies I & II (1997-1999)
Haze Express (1999)
The Living Web (2002)
NanoScape (2002)
MobileFeelings I & II (2003-2004)
Eau de Jardin (2004)
Life Writer (2006)
The Value of Art (2010)
Escape (2012)
Portrait on the fly (2015-2018)
Egometer (2017)
Neuro Mirror (2017)
Scavengers (2020)