architecture social club sets volumes of light afloat, flickering in animated choreographies

parallels projects exploding, pulsing spokes of light

Parallels is an experiment in tectonic light that straddles the boundary between representation and abstraction, elevating vividness over resolution. Set against a musical score by Max Cooper, London-based Architecture Social Club presents a series of floating volumes of animated light, a transcendental ambiguity constructed through precision. The studio samples videos of natural phenomena exploded into thousands of scintillating spokes of light, that pulse, fade, and flicker as if primal triggers in a synaptic choreography, alternating between mesmerizing serenity and eruptions of chaos. These ethereal extrusions of light emerge and recede through hypnotic cascades and luminous schisms — animated fields of colour in pursuit of the sublime.

all images and video courtesy of Architecture Social Club

architecture social club sparks luminous choreographies

Parallels is a touring artwork that has been exhibited across the world, most recently in Mexico and Lithuania. Because of the monumental horizontality of the beams, the piece is ideally situated in long, open spaces, creating vast chasms of light. To date, the largest space Parallels has been exhibited in stretched to 150m. The system works by converting moving film into fragmented beams of laser light which then reflect off thousands of small mirrors placed with 1/16 of a degree accuracy. Architecture Social Club extrudes the moving film over the crowd as floating volumes of light abstracting and intensifying the qualities of the original footage. The content itself is created from video samples of powerful and evocative natural phenomena, from ruptured mantle and blossoming flora, to the iridescent movement of heavenly bodies. The process, to the designers, is a translation of the figurative into the atmospheric – ‘seeking infinition not definition.’

Parallels installation presents a series of floating volumes of animated light

Architecture Social Club samples videos of natural phenomena exploded into thousands of spokes of light

the touring artwork has been exhibited across the world, most recently in Mexico and Lithuania

the work is animated against a musical score by Max Cooper

the system’s laser light beams reflect off thousands of small mirrors placed with 1/16 of a degree accuracy

project info:

name: Parallels
artist: Architecture Social Club

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edited by: ravail khan | designboom