Random International is a postdigital art group exploring the impact of technological development on the human condition. Experimental by nature, Random International’s practice is fuelled by research and scientific discovery. The group aims to broaden the question of what it is to be alive today by experimenting with how we connect — to different kinds of life, to different views of the world, and to one another.
Artists Florian Ortkrass and Hannes Koch were both born in 1975 in Germany and met at Brunel University before going on to complete their Masters at the Royal College of Art. They founded Random International following their graduation from the RCA in 2005.
Nearing almost two decades since the studio’s inception, the focus of Random International’s artistic practice has continuously evolved, and today embraces sculpture, performance, and installation, often on an architectural scale. Their highly collectable work creates a bridge between the human, the digital and the architectural scales by creating monumental works that offer their audiences personal and instinctive experiences.
Their Swarm Study series explores the perceived embodiment of collective intelligence as expressed solely through movement, and the instinctual connections this can provoke in the human visual system. Inspired by the enigmatic and acrobatic efficiency of starlings’ murmurations in flight, the work simulates and disseminates natural flocking behaviour at its most basic algorithmic form, embodying it in light.
Their critically acclaimed installation Rain Room is in the collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art as well as the Sharjah Art Foundation and has also been exhibited at London’s Barbican (2012); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2015/2018); and MoCA Busan (2019). Editions of Rain Room have been permanently installed at the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE in 2018 and the Jackalope Collection in Melbourne, respectively (2019).
Their work is also found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum London, the Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art Detroit, the YUZ Foundation Shanghai, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art LA.
Awards
2011
/ Swarm Study III, Victoria & Albert Museum commission in collaboration withCarpentersWorkshop Gallery, London.
2010
/ Designers of the Future, Design Miami/Basel, Switzerland.
2009
/ Prix Ars Electronica — Honourable Mention in Interactive Art category.
2007
/ Observer Future — 500 List Top Ten Creative Talent in the UK.
2006
/ Wallpaper* — Design Award.
/ iF Design Award — Concepts category (Germany).
/ CR — Creative Futures Award, Interaction Design category.
2005
/ 18th Koizumi International Lighting Design Competition — Bronze Design Award (Japan).
/ Matthews Wrightson Trust Award.
/ iF Design Award — Concepts category (Germany).
2004
/ Rosenthal European Competition — Runners up.
/ Identity for Egyptian Museum (Doha, Qatar).
Literature
2009
/ Gareth Williams, “Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in contemporary Design”,
London: V&A Publishing, 2009.
2008
/ “Design and the Elastic Mind”, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2008. September, 2009.
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Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Tate Modern, London. Museo di Arte Contemporaneo Luigi Pecci, Prato
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
The Barbican Centre, London
The International Design Museum, Jerusalem
The International Design Museum, Munich
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
The Seoul Design Museum, Seoul
New Media Gallery, New Westminster
ZKM, Karlsruhe. Kunsthalle Praha, Prague
YUZ Museum, Shanghai
