Catalogue > At random

"to conceal what one is, rather than to pretend to be what one is not" Film in triptych format with common soundtrack. Three channelled video. 13 mins. The film focuses on the vocabulary, tools and human representation in the various types of software that is used for modelling and tracking crowd behaviour. Featured in the film are examples from online crowd simulation tutorials: coordinated swarms, mass body crushes, campsites and religious gatherings such as the Hajj in Mecca. These examples are juxtaposed with newly shot scenes of gestures and postures drawn from the simulated crowd agent, the default character, pre-programed behaviour re-enacted by dancers and images from human tracking devices and. images from human tracking devices and The voice-over interlaces the information and the instructions from the software tutorials generated by a speechedit software/robot voice, with the artist's own voice and thoughts. The film addresses the aesthetics and politics of these softwares and tracking system where these digital tools used for monitoring today´s crowd flows and behaviour are becoming increasingly political while facing ethical dilemmas. Sheding new light on the digitisation and simulations of crowds, their interconnected technologies and their inherent potentiality to predict and model our future collective behaviour. This film is part of my ongoing research, practice-based PhD at the Royal College of Art in London, Prediciting Crowds. The aesthetics and politics of digitized and simulated crowds.

Anna Adahl is a visual artist and researcher working in various mediums such as film, installations, performance and collage. She uses the tools of assemblage and montage where found footage meets newly shot images and where ready-mades are used as props in spatial narratives. In 2015 she started her practice-led PhD adressing the aesthetics and politics of digitized and simulated crowds. Over the past decade the notion and politics of crowds has been central in Anna Adahl's artistic practice. In numerous works she has been observing and examining the relationship between the individual and the mass as well as the language of the body in relation to the psychological, physical or political space that surrounds it. Within her current practice based research her focus has turned towards the conditions, the aesthetics and the politics of contemporary crowds, operating in a new computational realm. Her work has been presented and exhibited internationally including: Marabouparken Art Gallery, Stockholm (2018); Moderna Muséet, Stockolm (2018); Festival des Cinémas Differents et Experimentaux de Paris (2018); Nanjing International Art Festival, China (2017), Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2016); Lofoten International Arts Festival, Norway (2015); CCA Derry-Londonderry, Northern-Ireland, UK (2015); FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2013).