Clickers - Exploring Coincidence and emergent behaviours.
Photo credit: Sandra Ciampone
Clickers is an installation that experiments with our relationship to coincidence. It is an ecosystem comprised of hundreds of individual, independent modules that click in response to light. If a light is shone brightly on a module, it will click more rapidly. In the dark, the sound is sparse. Although each of the units responds almost identically to light intensity, when they are distributed across a space, their individual experience of the light creates a polyrhythmic soundscape. In bright light, this sounds almost like a field of cicadas and in lower lights more like the end of a storm, with drops falling from the eaves. In all lights, the emergent behaviour makes the piece feel alive and watching the development and changes in the system is a dynamic and meditative experience.
Method
Each module is fitted with a light sensor, LED and an analog oscillator circuit. When light is shone on the sensor, the paper membrane on each unit vibrates to create a soft click and at the same time, the LED flashes on and off. The incoming light intensity dictates the rate of vibration such that the emergent audio and light patterns from the group are a direct response to the environment.
Photo/video credit: Sandra Ciampone
