╳ Back in 2007, The Barbarian Group, an interactive marketing firm, created an installation of ‘Artificial Butterflies’ for the McLeod Residence, an art cooperative and gallery based in Seattle, Washington. ╳ Aiming to make the space to feel reminiscent of an entomology exhibit at a natural history museum, with specimen drawings mounted on the walls and physical butterflies displayed in plexiglas vitrines; each of the delicate butterfly wings was lasercut from drawing paper; and with the help of small neodymium magnets, an Arduino board and a ‘mac mini,’ as visitors walked closer to get a better view, the butterflies, encased in their vitrines, began to flap their wings.
╳ The beautiful butterfly wing patterns were generated through a simple random circle packing algorithm, where randomly sized circles were placed in the wing shape. And according to their creators: “if there was any overlap with the already existing circles, the new one was tossed and the process run again until the wing was filled,” thus producing a surprising degree of variation by altering the sensitivity of the overlap testing function.
╳ This bio-inspired installation not only demonstrates the poetic interplay between nature and technology, it is surely one of the most sensitive examples.
