Matjaž Pogačnik & Jakob Lavrič: Fireflies
sound-light installation
Garden next to the Križevniška Church // until 20 June
OPENING: Tuesday, 26 May 2026, at 9:30 p.m.

The garden next to Križevniška Church currently hosts Fireflies, a new site-specific project by the duo Matjaž Pogačnik and Jakob Lavrič. The installation consists of a series of small autonomous light bodies that extend in the given environment as organically as possible; their nighttime flickering creates a magical impression of liveliness. The authors conceived the fireflies so as to function as independent oscillators with their own timers, triggering light and sound signals. Individual fireflies are capable of detecting signals from their neighbours and making corresponding phase corrections or independent adjustments to their own flashing frequency. As a result, fireflies eventually synchronise, which leads to the consistent activity of the entire swarm or its parts. However, the placement does not necessarily always function optimally: according to the authors, communication disturbances and the consequent phase discrepancies introduce an element of unpredictability, thereby bringing the project even closer to the nature of life itself.

MATJAŽ POGAČNIK graduated from the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana. He is interested in audiovisual installations that combine modern technology with art and creativity. JAKOB LAVRIČ is a student of multimedia at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana. During a study exchange at the Technical University Berlin, he studied at the Department of Generative Art / Computational Art at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). He is interested in transferring scientific content to sound and light installations. In 2024 and in 2025, the authors collaborated on the projects Spark and Bad Image, respectively, presented at the Lighting Guerrilla festival.

The authors developed this years’ project at last year’s PIF camp, produced by the Atol Institute and the Ljudmila Association.

Co-production: Ljubljana Festival