Connect
Andreas Muxel
Connect
feedback-driven sculpture
"Connect" demonstrates emergent complex behaviour with an elegant economy of means. This testifies to a clarity of thinking and an understanding of the issues at hand. In each of nine units, a steel ball is suspended from a rubber string which is driven, yo-yo like, for a short period, by the motor it is suspended from. The only other component of the work is a short string with a magnet at each end. At the outset, it is attached to one ball. The presence of this ‘magnet-string’ causes the ball it is attached to be excited, which in turn causes the loose end of the string to swing around and the ball-string and magnet-string pair to behave as a ‘double pendulum’ - an iconic chaotic motion generator. Eventually, the loose magnet finds a second ball, which excites the second ball, and the assemblage of three swing around, until one magnet breaks away. The process continues in this fashion, the magnet string passing active status around the group in an unpredictable pattern. As an installation, "Connect" is a charming demonstration of the phenomenon of emergent behaviour, in which constantly changing activity emerges from an array of simple elements with identical behaviour repertoires.
