12 Muscles (contractions, code, compressed air)
By Anika Gardner in collaboration with Stelarc presented at Praxis Gallery, South Australia as part of Materialism
The coded choreography uses pseudo randomisation to generate mutating sequences from a limited range of movement motifs. A loose code structure holds the variations of output within the functional parameters of the equipment. The 12 x 2.5m long rubber muscles are industrial grade pneumatic actuators from FESTO robotics that exert a pulling force of 1000N. Like organic musculature, they have flex and curvature. The clicking of the solenoid valves, the inhale exhale, the concrete scraping slippages augment the latent soundscape. A sense of aliveness is generated by the muscle movements and sounds. This aspiration of the musculature to attain new iterative choreographies through randomisation alludes to a core tenet of biological evolution - mutation’s role in variation. As such, it is the generator of innovation and the new.
Over the course of a day the rubber muscles moved out of their original linear grid alignment to find new compositional relations within the space.
Photo Credit: Paige Glancey
