Dancing With Light
"Future Self" by Random International is a jaw-droppingly beautiful performance of dance, light and music.
“Future Self” by Random International is a jaw-droppingly beautiful performance of dance, light and music. Combining a simple array of LED lights, Random International worked with choreographer Wayne McGregor and musician Max Richter to create a stunningly reactive installation for dance between human and machine. Upon first glance, one could make mistakingly pass this off for yet another mildly responsive light work, think Jim Campbell, but you’d be wrong.
“Future Self” is a performance created out of a sculpture, and is the bright future of technology and performance. The lights appear so responsive to their human-counterparts that through mirroring and reactions the technology itself disappears, becoming instead a third dancer. Started in 2005 in London by Stuart Wood, Florian Ortkrass and Hannes Koch, this blending is the entire goal of Random International, as their website describes their work as “encouraging relationships between the converging worlds of animate and inanimate.”
Some artists and art-enthusiasts are very hesitant or outright opposed to the blurring of the human touch and that of technology, but that line, if it exists anymore, is very blurry, and exciting spaces are being created within the grey area. I for one hope to see much more from this young company.
