/LED work/

“For my Hjorted LAB presentation, I propose to present a yet unnamed performance, provisionally titled /LED work/. This is a still unfinished work, which is in the process of being experimented with, precisely in order to find its best performative qualities. The /LED work/ uses commercially available 5mm LED lights which automatically fade and blink. These lights are used for decoration and "fake flickering candles", and have the peculiar characteristic of not needing any external components; simply by connecting them to a power source, they exhibit their flickering and blinking behaviours. By connecting an audio cable directly to the LED leads, much like wiretapping, an oscillating signal within audio range can be heard. Currently I'm investigating strategies to find time-shaping behaviours and gestures which could work as a performance – such as powering several LEDs in series and in parallel, which reduces their voltage and current, respectively, and the sound they emit when being abruptly shut down.

At Hjorted LAB I intend to experiment with a performance version of this system, where something between 5 and 8 of the "modules" seen in the example videos are spread across the audience. Throughout the performance, I will walk around the space adding and/or removing LEDs from the prototyping boards, in order to control the overall form and duration. This will be a first showcase of this experiment, to gauge, amongst other things, its feasibility as time-based performance vs. as fixed installation.” - Magno Caliman