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The installation references a form of communication that has almost been consigned to oblivion: the use of a mirror and sunlight to exchange information over long distances.
A grid of one hundred white prosthetic hands actuated by stepper motors, enabling them to rotate around their own axis are mounted on a wall. Each hand is holding a small mirror in a precisely calculated alignment. adjacently positioned bright light source shines on this matrix covering approximately 4 square meters, causing the turning mirrors to cast small moving light spots across the space. What initially seemed like an asynchronous, chaotic pattern of movement soon revealed itself as a complex, computational choreography: At first the hundred light spots moved around a central point, akin to the celestial dynamics of the planets or the flight pattern of a swarm of insects and creating the impression of a three-dimensional space. then suddenly this organic oscillation converges to form a chinese character denoting movement and action.
The work was a commission for the “Pavilion for the Disabled” at Expo Shanghai 2010 by the prosthesis manufacturer Otto Bock and was realized in conjunction with my friends and colleagues at ART+COM. Special mention: Hermann Klöckner, Susanne Traeger, David Siegel and the technicians from ict, Stuttgart.