In Love With The World was Anicka Yi's Hyundai Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, from October 2021 to January 2022. Yi filled the hall with aerobes, eighteen helium-filled flying machines in two species, whose movements were steered by an artificial-life simulation responding to visitors picked up by thermal cameras around the hall, alongside a changing programme of scents.
KitMapper was brought in to operate and maintain the work through its run. We recruited and trained the technicians who flew the fleet each day from the battery pond in the hall, working in three fixed roles: ground control, handling battery changes and small repairs; a transmitter operator, ready to pilot any aerobe by hand; and a mission controller, running the simulation, flight control and thermal camera systems.
Daily routines covered pre-flight checks, staggered launches, continuous battery charging, inflation, tentacle repairs and the end-of-day landing of the whole fleet. At the close we carried out deinstallation condition reports and an image inventory of every aerobe and component, so the work could travel on.
