Tomás Saraceno Particular Matter(s) Jam Session, 2018
Live spider, spider silk, carbon fiber, focusing light, dust, 3D tracking software, computer, video camera, speakers, video projector
Dimensions variable
In a darkened room, a beam of light makes visible the tiny dust particles caught dancing in the air. These movements are filmed and transmitted to a computer with a video tracking software that analyzes the trajectories of the dust particles and translates them into a visual live-sequence. The video output of the dust particles’ live tracking is mapped onto a still of 163,000 Light Years, an earlier work by Tomás Saraceno. The image was taken during an expedition to Salar de Uyuni that the artist partook together with a team of astronomers. It captures the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy, located 163,000 light-years away from the Solar System. The superimposition of the still image and the live-tracked movement of the dust is projected onto a layered semi-transparent screen, creating a vertiginous visual effect of depth and space.
The light beam also illuminates a spider sitting in its web, woven inside a suspended carbon fiber frame. A bright light casts a dramatic silhouette of the web and the weaver on the wall behind. Spider's actions are picked up by three directional microphones and translated into low frequency sounds emitted by speakers positioned nearby the light beam. The vibrations created by these sounds in turn create small vibrations, which stir up dust particles naturally present in the room, orchestrating their live stream seen on the screen.