Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery
38 Marcy Avenue
Williamsburg / Greenpoint / Bushwick
April 25 - May 31, 2008
Ryan Wolfe
"Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" - Edward Lorenz
An installation inspired by the theories of Edward Lorenz opens one week after his death. This one man's giant impact on contemporary thinking leaves everything after him forever changed.
Branching Systems(butterfly hurricane) Masses of robotic leaves flutter like butterflies, transforming the gallery space into a jungle-like network of complex, serendipitious motion. Individual viewers have an impact on this motion, and their physical interactions with the piece ripple out across the network like wind.
Branching Systems (butterfly hurricane) is an interactive installation exploring Lorenz's famous "butterfly effect" which signalled the beginnings of modern chaos theory. It tangibly reimagines cause and effect wrapped into a single moment, and demonstrates how small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.
Originally posted on ArtCal Picks by Rhizome
