Void (Vide)

Void is a generative and interactive digital artwork by Hugo Verlinde comprising three large laterally separated LED screens. 

These screens open onto a living interstellar cloud, made up of luminous blue and white squares. This primitive nebula, static at first, reacts to the behaviour of the spectators like a perfectly choreographed ballet. When a spectator isn’t interacting with it, the cloud is calm and aerated. Yet when a spectator approaches, the cloud swells up, becomes agitated and transforms into an infinity of turbulences. 

Movement entails movement; and many spectators experiment by modifying the amplitude and speed of their gestures - sometimes even by dancing or running in front of the artwork - in order to initiate a sensitive dialogue with it. And everyone is surprised when, saturated with energy, the cloud brutally converges towards a concentrated state representative of the birth of a star: a cluster of energy sharply accumulates and seems to plunge into space. 

The relation between the public forms very quickly. Void seizes us in the instant, and transports us towards a more distant time in which the artwork topples into a new cycle of its life. 

Photos and video by Hugo Verlinde

Voice over : Harry Long