IVY

The oeuvre of the Russian-born artist ::vtol:: – whose name is an acronym for »vertical take-off and landing« – encompasses both sound objects and hybrid kinetic installations that exist at the intersections of sound art, robotics and creative hacking. The artist finds ever new and captivating configurations for his objects, which are made of gutted media devices and various electronic components such as engines, sensors, Wi-Fi receivers and radio receivers.

For the ZKM, ::vtol:: has developed the installation IVY, an oversized step sequencer on a wall about 5m long. Starting with the first beat of a rhythmic tone sequence, a programmed ongoing LED ticker display visualizes the current position of the beat until, after hundreds of steps, the program completes a loop and starts counting again from the beginning. Visitors to the exhibition can manually adjust and control the rhythms of the audio loop by using a control panel with variable parameters such as tempo, pitch and sound duration.