Mythic Progress
Mythic Progress inhabits stability and instability simultaneously. The camera eye embedded in The Octo-Bouncer’s Arduino program calculates the ping pong ball’s 3D position to determine the position of the glass plate, which shifts precisely so the ball remains bouncing on the plate. The visual metaphor of movement in stasis elucidates a frustrated and repetitive stuckness in motion. Is the system rigged so the ball doesn’t veer too far off course, too far away from a status quo position of ‘stability’, always hovering around the center? The machine has political allusions to getting back to a ‘moderate’ position, never veering too far away from a political center position. The video image of this self-determined machine is replicated to infinity within the cylindrical mirror structure.
Image Credit: Yann Chashanovski