The Collapse of a Microcosm is a site-specific installation that engages in a continuous – day-and-night – dialogue with its environment, forming a sensory record of place, light, and human presence as it fades into the past.

The installation consists of a distributed network of 90 custom-made artificial memory modules, or ‘memory vectors’, arranged in a multi-layered loop. Each module includes RGB LEDs, photosensors responsive to both visible and non-visible light (including infrared and UV), and a miniature speaker that signals its activity. Light sensed from the environment enters the loop and is passed from module to module, like a message whispered from ear to ear, transformed at every step by the interference and fluctuations of the world it moves through. Having cycled once or twice through the entire network, a signal may return minutes or hours later, an emergent memory arising from the structure of the loop itself. This recursive choreography creates a web of sensing and propagation, responding to the arc of the sun, shadows, movements, and highlights — translating each trace into light and sound, and with every step, re-inscribing it into the system.

Each memory vector emits a distinct tone, producing a sonic imprint that represents the contrast between the past and the present. Together they form a layered, disharmonic soundscape that continuously evolves, a sonic archive where artificial and natural rhythms converge.

The result is a sensory ecology — a system in which technology, environment, and human presence are not separate elements but participants in a shared, continuous exchange. Like a natural ecosystem, no single component controls the whole; each module senses, responds, and passes its state forward, shaping and being shaped by everything around it. Composed of photons and vibrations, the installation weaves together time, light, and sound into a living memory of its environment.

In this iteration, located in Moss (Norway) and overlooking the Oslo fjord, the piece resonates with the ever-changing coastal weather and light. It responds intimately to the local rhythms of water, wind, and light, which continuously shape its memory and expression.