Synchronicity

curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler
in partnership with the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University

Opening

Arsenal Contemporary is pleased to present Robin Meier’s Synchronicity in collaboration with the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Robin Meier’s practice focuses on the natural order of things, looking to structures void of human intervention to question our newly defined role within these environments. An anthropocentric view of the world gives man precedence in all hierarchies; in Meier’s installation this position dissolves, leaving room for the conditions of dispersed organization to emerge. 

Synchronicity is a 29-minute video set in the mangrove forests of Thailand, starring two groups of non- human actors, fireflies and LED lights, slowly systematizing into harmonized blinking. This resulting patterned coordination of thousands of insects and machine is a simple exchange that gives way to a mating process greater than any individual. Like many complex networks that make up our lived environments, Synchronicity pays witness to systems of self-organization collectivizing across objects and organisms. 

For this iteration, the artist has extended the experimental field into the space, placing two pendulums and LED lights synced with the filmed scene through branches in the gallery. The autonomous coordination of insects and machine reappears as a structure emulated and remodeled by the artist for human participation. 

Robin Meier works and lives between Rome and Paris. His installations have been presented in institutions including the Palais de Tokyo, the 11th Shanghai Biennale, and the Edythe and Eli Broad Museum MSU. A special presentation of Synchronicity was shown at Art Basel and the Prix Fondation Ricard, Paris. 

Robin Meier & Andre Gwerder: Synchronicity (Thailand), 2015-18 Digital Video (4k/2k), Stereo Soundtrack, 29 Minutes. Ed. Of 5 produced by The Audemars Piguet Art Commission, Le Brassus Director of Photography: Nikolai Zheludovich; Editing: Mariko Montpetit. Soundtrack Robin Meier and Ali Momeni.