Universal Everything: Lifeforms

A new exhibition at 180 Studios is utilising moving image artworks inspired by futurists’ attempts to depict the body in motion. ‘Lifeforms’ is the largest UK solo show to date from the art collective Universal Everything, who have previously worked with artists including Radiohead, Coldplay and Primal Scream, and created digital works for the MoMa, The Barbican, and London’s Science Museum.

The exhibition consists of 14 individual ‘lifeforms’, each existing in distinct habitats created by Ab Rogers Design. These unpredictable installations, often created using generative software, mirror and shift over time and with the public’s interactions — such as is the case with ‘Into the Sun’, in which a display of the sun and plants responds to the viewer’s movements to create a collective “plant choreography”.

Universal Everything’s Matt Pyke has elsewhere highlighted a generative piece that avoids repetition to go “beyond the loop” in a manner reminiscent of an improvisational jazz gig. ‘Maison Autonome’, the project in question, is an automated design system framed as a catwalk show — with motion-captured models wearing infinite combinations of generated costumes and clothing as they stroll down the runway.

‘Universal Everything: Lifeforms’ runs until 18 December 2022 at 180 The Strand, London