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SHOW TITLE: All Around Us: Installations and Experiences Inspired by Bugs
ARTISTS: Jennifer Angus, Daniel Campos, Garnet Hertz, Ivana Adaime Makac, Robin Meier & Andre Gwerder, Nathan Morehouse, Daniel Zurek & Sebastian Echeverri, Matthijs Munnik, Stephanie Ross, Jeff Shaw, Susana Soares, Bingrui Tang & CMU CREATE Lab
CURATOR: Ali Momeni

This exhibition stands in awe of the quintillions of bugs that have inhabited our planet for millions of years and the complex relationship they maintain with our species. The works included here transform our tiny cohabitants superpowers into human-scale experiences, in an attempt to examine our conflicting relationship with insects. – Ali Momeni, Curator

Participating artists: Jennifer Angus, Daniel Campos, Garnet Hertz, Ivana Adaime Makac, Robin Meier & Andre Gwerder, Nathan Morehouse, Daniel Zurek & Sebastian Echeverri, Matthijs Munnik, Stephanie Ross, Jeff Shaw of Burgh Bees**, Susana Soares, Bingrui Tang + CMU CREATE Lab

**Special thanks to Burgh Bees

Events Scheduled for the April 22nd Opening

Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot
Garnet Hertz
7pm performance
Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot is an experimental robotic system that translates the bodily movements of a living, organic insect into the physical locomotion of a three-wheeled robot. Distance sensors at the front of the robot also provide navigation feedback to the cockroach, striving to create a pseudo-intelligent system with the cockroach as the CPU.
[For this demonstration, the robot will be operated for approx. 120 min.]

Live Courtship in Habronattus Jumping Spiders
Nathan Morehouse, Sebastian Echeverri, and Ali Momeni
8pm performance
Habronattus is a diverse and colorful genus of jumping spiders. They live in the southwestern US, Mexico and into central America. Like the Australian peacock spiders, male Habronattus try to woo their females with spectacular courtship dances. These dances are made up of different phases containing visual and vibratory elements.
[The complex and flamboyant displays of male Habronattus jumping spiders will be filmed in 4k on an architectural stage installed in the gallery, with the streaming footage projected live.]

Synchronicity
Robin Meier and Andre Gwerder
9pm performance
Synchronicity (Thailand) is a video documentation of an experiment where live fireflies are made synchronise their flashes to computer controlled LED’s. Throughout the video the artists explore the relationship between mathematical models of this complex group behaviour and their biological reality in the field. By influencing living fireflies with computer controlled lights they question the idea of free will and simultaneously transform a machine into a living actor inside a colony of insects.
[For the opening of the exhibition, Robin Meier & Ali Momeni will present a musical performance on the theme of synchrony vs synchronicity to accompany the first showing of the video Synchronicity (Thailand) in the US. Guided by two naturally synchronising pendulums they will join the rhythmic chorus of the fireflies and LED's]