Hasta La Ideas

Gracing the Art Skybridge at the Eugene Lang College of The New School is the interactive light and sound installation Artfix Mori, a collaboration between visiting artists Jason Krugman a kinetic light sculptor and media artist John Ensor Parker.

The Bombyx Mori is a species of silkworm valued for its production of silk. This silkworm produces a rare form of silk material that is harvested by being boiled while the insect is still in its cocoon. The harvested silk is then used in production of everything from touch screens to hydrogels. These cocoons are made up of silk string that can span up to a mile wide when unravelled.

Spanning the curved corridor is a series of branches lit with LED lights tipped by the delicate silk cocoons of the Bombyx Mori. The branches are mechanical actuators that convert electricity into movement. Emanating light from the cocoons’ emptied interiors, the branches of light bend and sway in response to the proximity of a passerby, creating a gentle clicking sound from the motors powering the system. Underlying the installation space is the warm drone of a sound piece designed from recording the wings of a hatched Bombyx Mori larva that would have emerged from its cocoon, playing back the lifespan of a Bombyx Mori at a frequency audible to humans.

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