Public Art Installation • Docklands, Melbourne • 2023
An interactive, solar powered installation of 130 cybernetic creatures that listen to their environment and communicate using sound and light.
HOLON: something that is simultaneously a whole in and of itself, as well as a part of a larger whole.
Strapped to heritage-listed pier pylons at Melbourne's waterfront docks, 130 solar-powered holons float above the water, signalling and communicating to each other and to other biological species in their vicinity using sound and light. Staged for two weeks in August as part of the Now or Never festival, 2023.
Inspired by research into acoustic and soundscape ecologies, HOLON is a provocation on the colonisation of our landscape by technology. Each electronic creature seeks to communicate with its neighbours via sound. Creatures listen to their acoustic environment and attempt to find sound frequencies that are currently unoccupied by human, machine or animal sounds. Based on the organisational principles outlined by Arthur Koestler in his 1967 book "The Ghost in the Machine", each individual holon is part of a collective whole: an network of multiple agencies that includes the biological, natural, computational and human.
Each holon is a self-contained cybernetic organism, equipped with multiple microphones, speakers, LED lights and an on-board computer. Holons get their energy from the sun via a photovoltaic cell attached on their backs. Sun charges an internal battery, allowing them to make sound and light at night. The more energy they receive during the day, the more lively they become at night.
There are three different kinds of holon:
Holon suggests a possible future where electronic life seeks to co-exist with biological life.
HOLON was commissioned by the City of Melbourne's Now or Never Festival in collaboration with Experimenta. The project was designed, developed and built at SensiLab, Monash University from March – August 2023. The images below show stages of the design and build process from initial sketches to completed work.
Concept, programming, development
Engineering & design
Production
Commissioned by
Jon McCormack
Elliott Wilson
SensiLab, Monash University
Now or Never & Experimenta
HOLON was commissioned by the Now or Never Festival, City of Melbourne in collaboration with Experimenta. The work formed part of the Now or Never Art Trail, 17 August – 2 September, 2023.