Cycles is an interactive installation that establishes an intimate relationship between the visitor's physical body and simulated organisms. It explores notions of transience and identity that draw inspiration from Buddhist philosophy. According to Buddhist philosophy, the concept of self and the experience of identity undergoes a continuous process of development and change. Every attempt to cling to a fixed notion of identity results in the painful experience of the four sufferings of life: the suffering of birth, aging, sickness and death. Cycles revisits this notion of identity. It creates a situation that causes the visitor to experience his or her own body in a state of mutability and transience. Cycles merges the appearance of the visitor's hand with a visual representation of the simulation. By bridging the gap between the virtual and physical, a hybrid entity comes into existence whose rapidly changing body blends artificial and natural properties. This hybrid entity progresses through a life cycle that reenacts the four Buddhist sufferings.

This project has been realized as a collaboration:

Daniel Bisig: Installation Design, Interaction, Swarm Simulation and Visuals
Tatsuo Unemi: Swarm Simulation and Visuals