AirWorms

January 2010

Two structures moving towards each-other. Air flowing through their bodies. One of them big, the other one smaller, both strong. Bright daylight almost blinds you when you try to look at their growing movement. You hear a cracking sound com- ing from their direction. sometimes barely hearable, sometimes a big wave thun- ders through the room. The two artificial, yet organic forms are trying to push each other away, struggling for space to grow bigger and bigger. Will one survive, or will they both die out?

This installation symbolizes the struggle of growth and survival in a strange environment. My aim was to create an installation which would be different every time you would look at it. a structure which creates it’s own form and would adapt it’s behaviour according to the location. It will change it’s form and size according to the provided space and the structure of the surface. This way it becomes part of the environment. I made a completely artificial object, that has no relation to any living thing at first sight. Through its movement it creates a behaviour that most people will recognize as a spark of life. airWorms consists of two separate transparent plastic tubes, di- vided in smaller compartments. These two tubes are rolled up and connected to air- blowers. When life is blown into the objects, they will start to unroll an will continue to develop their own form until completely filled with air. At that point the blowers will be disconnected and slowly the air will start to escape out of the structures. This process can be seen as a life cycle. life is blown into the structure, as a reac- tion to that it starts growing, the structure will reach it’s top and then it slowly deflates and goes back to a pile of dead plastic. another aspect of airworms is the struggle between two powers. one of them is big, the other one is smaller. You would expect that the big one wins easily, but this isn’t the case. The smaller one is more compact and from this compactness the small one gains a lot of strength. The outcome of the fight between these two different powers will stay uncertain until the end.