Ant Ballet was featured on the BBC News website this morning. The segment shows a brief overview of the project, along with a guided tour of the installation at FutureEverything in MOSI‘s 1830 Warehouse, Manchester.
You can watch the article here.
Mark Wilson of FastCoDesign.com wrote a lovely article about Ant Ballet. You can read it online here.
In anticipation of the FutureEverything art exhibition, Manchester Evening News ran a story about Ant Ballet last week. Unforutnately the only copy I could get my hands on was a bit dog-eared, so you may not be able to decipher it from the above photo, but you can read the article online here.
I know not everyone can make it to Manchester for FutureEverything, so took a couple of panoramic photosynths so that everyone can join in the fun. The exhibition is in the world’s first railway warehouse, so it’s a nice contrast between the peak of 1830’s physical technology and 2012’s (mostly) virtual!
First up is the elevator that takes people from the ground floor to the exhibition:
It’s been designed by Jörn Röder and Jonathan Pimay. Called fbFaces, it is the result of a script that trawled the web for public photos of people from and related to Manchester. There’s something of a Philip K Dick novel/Keiichi Matsuda experience in being surrounded by so many little avatars…
Secondly, here’s my Ant Ballet installation:
It has four screens showing documentary footage and theory about Ant Ballet, and a floating circular screen in the middle of the space with a robotic arm and simulation of ant trail following and disruption.
On the other side of the room is Brendan Oliver and Kasia Molga‘s The…. Based around David Bohm‘s philosophy that no human thought can be original, but rather a result of other thoughts in the world, it presents visitors with poetic (and non-Justin Bieber-related) Twitter feeds that are sent from one viewers’ shadow to another.
Unfortunately I didn’t have exhibition features numerous other works by artists such as Lawrence Epps, Jeremy Hutchison, Daniel Jones + James Bulley and more. It is open from the 18th May – 10th June at the Museum of Science and Industry
I recently spoke to Carol Huston of Dazed and Confused about Ant Ballet. Read the article here.
Ant Ballet at FutureEverything 2012 was reviewed by We Make Money Not Art‘s Regine Debatty today. Read the interview here.
Ant Ballet was featured in the Manchester version of the Metro the other day as part of FutureEverything’s Art Exhibition.
Sad to hear about the passing of Adam Yaunch a couple of days ago. The Beastie Boys are the soundtrack to much of machine-building – here’s a video from the construction of the Ant Ballet machine last year:
RIP MCA.
This is the cheapest insurance policy you can get to cover losing an iPhone, at 54p! Its reliability is yet to be tested fully. Get in there quick before the cost of stamps goes up again.
The Snowdon Aviary (designed by Lord Snowdon and Cedric Price) is my favourite building at ZSL London Zoo. My Ant Ballet installation is also in the zoo until the 11th May.