Chico MacMurtrie

[Airicist]

Website - amorphicrobotworks.org (http://amorphicrobotworks.org)

vimeo.com/chicomacmurtrie (https://vimeo.com/chicomacmurtrie)

facebook.com/chico.murtrie (https://www.facebook.com/chico.murtrie)

Chico MacMurtrie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_MacMurtrie) on Wikipedia


In 1992 MacMurtrie formed Amorphic Robot Works, a group of artists and engineers working together to create robotic art performances and installations.

Projects:

"The Robotic Church (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?9681)"

Organograph (https://pr.ai/showthread.php?4011)

[Airicist]

https://vimeo.com/71576625

Chrysalis
August 2, 2013


Chrysalis, is a live interactive environment and the most recent of a series of Inflatable Architectures by Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works.
Chrysalis is composed of 100 interconnecting high tensile fabric tubes that form, when fully inflated, a 12 meter long, 8 meter wide and 5 meter high architectural space, evocative of crystal formations. The tubes are networked into 16 live sections and animated by compressed air via a servo controlled computer system. As the air is released out of the fabric, Chrysalis gently collapses into an organic shape.
Each of these networks can be selectively animated by the spectator’s motion, which is constantly monitored by the integrated Vision system.
Inspired by the architecture of the human body on a molecular level, Chrysalis provides a direct, visceral experience of the minute geometric constructions that underlie all of life.
The interactive component conceptually introduces the viewer as an agent whose presence changes the sculpture’s individual geometry, similar to a protein structure evolving into a different conformation as a direct response to a molecule entering its space.
Chrysalis resonates with audience on different levels. Several cameras record data in specific areas to collect and analyze different types of movement, their velocity and direction. This data is injected into the memory of the machine creating a new set of parameters and language for its own performance.
As a visitor is approaching, Chrysalis responds by opening one or a combination of several sections or by creating a portal that invites him or her inside.
Chrysalis functions also as a temporary architecture that performs independently from audience interaction by drawing from previously recorded software sequences. These sequences regulate the amount of air flowing in and out of the fabric tubes and creating a muscle and bone dynamic capable of expanding and retracting, lifting and lowering, as well as collapsing movements.
In its transition from an organic to a geometric state, Chrysalis can be ultimately appreciated from inside of the sculpture. The magnitude of the sculpture in relation to the size of the human body engages the audience in a transformative experience as they face and interact with their own biology on an inverted scale. Chrysalis’ with its ever changing geometry is a manifestation of the hidden organic life that inspires and informs all Man made systems.

[Airicist]

https://vimeo.com/85222828

Inflatable Architecture Intervention
January 28, 2014

[Airicist]

https://vimeo.com/89028476

Organic Arches
March 13, 2014


Organic Arches by Chico MacMurtrie / Amorphic Robot Works is a site-specific installation consisting of a progression of inflatable arches in different sizes that undergo an organic metamorphosis several times a day. Suspended from the ceiling and barely touching the floor, these hand formed arches are levitating and inhabiting the space with their weightlessness. Their diaphanous skin, a specifically designed high tensile fabric with a built in memory, absorbs the daylight and offers a view into their inner workings.
As the air starts to exit the rigid fabric tubes, the architecture is set in motion creating a new expectation of form. In deliberately subtle movements the arches curve inwards and slowly spiral up into individual organic things. In their transitional state, between architectural form and live organism, the arches surprise with an interplay of almost human gesture before they merge into abstract sign language as their own form of expression.
In this context, the random movements of each visitor parallel the actions of this computer controlled organism to create a new paradigm of hybrid symbiosis.
As a metaphor and magnification of the invisible microscopic life, Organic Arches takes its audience on an imaginary and visceral journey in and out of the body and into the machine.
Organic Arches has been co-produced with SESC SP, Automatica and Molior in 2014.

[Airicist]

https://vimeo.com/100728694

Chrysalis, Pioneer Works, Center for Art and Innovation, 2013
July 14, 2014


Chrysalis is a site specific, ever-changing, interactive inflatable architectural robotic environment. This performative structure is composed of 100 inter-connecting servo controlled fabric tubes, approximating both the qualities of muscles and the structural function of bones. 16 live networks can be selectively animated by the viewers' motion, capable of opening up the structure, creating portals and inviting the viewer inside in order to sculpt the ever changing architecture.
As a magnification of the cellular world, Chrysalis gives us a direct, visceral experience of the kinds of minute geometric constructions that underlie all of life.