Above and below: Replica of Gordon Pask’s 1968 “Colloquy of Mobiles” by TJ McLeish and Paul Pangaro at ZKM. Photo and video by TJ McLeish and Patricia Machado.
Today at the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, a fully-animated Colloquy of Mobiles was displayed at the opening of their exhibition titled »BioMedia: The Age of Media with Life-like Behavior«. Our replica of Gordon Pask’s 1968 Colloquy is perfectly poised to respond to ZKM’s intentions as expressed on the exhibition’s web page: “Who or what defines what is alive and what is intelligent? … What does cooperation of human beings and artificial agents look like? … The exhibition »BioMedia« invites visitors to learn about and discuss possible forms of cohabitation between organic and artificial forms of life.”
Above and below: Replica of Gordon Pask’s 1968 “Colloquy of Mobiles” by TJ McLeish and Paul Pangaro now installed at ZKM. All photos courtesy of Morgane Stricot, ZKM.
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the unveiling of our replica of Gordon Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles on February 26, 2020, at Centre Pompidou in Paris where it was part of the extraordinary exhibition MUTATIONS / CRÉATIONS 4: NEURONES / LES INTELLIGENCES SIMULÉES.
That opening was rich in energy and interactions as demonstrated in these short videos.
In March the exhibition had to close prematurely due to COVID.
Thereafter the great staff of Centre Pompidou and ZKM disassembled, transported, and reassembled Colloquy at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, where it has become part of the permanent collection.
We look forward to the museum’s reopening to the public and the opportunity for TJ Mcleish, Colloquy’s master fabricator, to travel to ZKM and animate the replica to make it fully operational once again.
Image above: Replica of Gordon Pask’s 1968 “The Colloquy of Mobiles” exhibited in the gallery of Centre Pompidou in 2020.
The replica of Gordon Pask’s 1968 Colloquy of Mobiles, reproduced by Paul Pangaro and TJ McLeish in 2018, is now on display in Centre Pompidou’s exhibition entitled MUTATIONS / CRÉATIONS 4: NEURONES / LES INTELLIGENCES SIMULÉES through April 20, 2020.
Image above: TJ McLeish calibrating light and sound in the gallery at Centre Pompidou for the public exhibition opening February 26, 2020.
Here at Centre Pompidou for the installation of Colloquy of Mobiles (its 2018 replica) to be displayed as part of a large-scale exhibition, with a conjoined history of brains, neural nets, AI, and cybernetic artifacts.
(Banner Image: TJ McLeish upgrading Colloquy in preparation for its heading to Europe. Perrier in tribute to Gordon Pask.)
After many weeks of toiling, master fabricator TJ McLeish has completed the mechatronic, digital hardware, and software upgrades to Colloquy 2018 in preparation for its crating and shipping to Centre Pompidou in Paris. There it will be shown in their major exhibition, MUTATIONS / CRÉATIONS 4: NEURONES / LES INTELLIGENCES SIMULÉES from 26 February through 20 April 2020.
When first created by Gordon Pask and shown in London in 1968, Colloquy of Mobiles was unlike any immersive gallery experience. Five interacting, human-scale mobiles (see photos below) held a “conversation” with each other through light and sound, exhibiting cooperation and competition. In significant ways, Pask’s “colloquy” (a “speaking together”) of mobiles from 1968 exceeds the interactivity of today’s conversational interfaces.
On the 50th anniversary of Pask’s original creation, the Colloquy 2018 Project implemented a replica faithful in appearance and behavior, while utilizing modern mechatronics and digital technology. With the success of the replica, the world-renowned Centre Pompidou requested that it become part of a major upcoming museum exhibition. Similarly, the ZKM Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany, has asked to acquire the work for their permanent collection.
1968: Gordon Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles, London2018: Colloquy of Mobiles Replica, Detroit
Final preparations for this future of Colloquy 2018 were completed at Omnicorp Collective Detroit this past weekend, with the help of current and former students of the MFA IxD program of the College for Creative Studies, where the project was initiated 2 years ago by McLeish and Paul Pangaro. (You can read here about replicating Pask’s original Colloquy.) A wide range of upgrades were made to improve the reliability and behaviors of the mobiles before transferring the work to Artpack Services for crating and shipping.
