DRIFT celebrates LACMA’s gallery opening with a glowing swarm of dancing drones

ByMyProperty Life

lacma’s David Geffen Galleries debut in L.A.

DRIFT has released Franchise Freedom, its illuminated flock of dancing drones, over the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), to mark the opening of the Peter Zumthor-designed David Geffen Galleries in Los Angeles.

Set along Wilshire Boulevard, the event placed two systems into conversation. The David Geffen Galleries extend horizontally in sand-toned concrete, forming a continuous elevated plane across the site. Above it, DRIFT’s formation of illuminated drones moved through the evening air, shifting in density and direction. One holds its position through mass and structure, the other through motion and coordination.

drift lacma
images © Pablo Garcia, Albert Azouz, Bo Bridges, Complex Aerial, Davis Huber, Dillon Harmon, Elias Posada, Jake Howard, Joshua Ewalt, Mark Christian, Patrick Coyne, Pedro Castro, Sammie Saing, William Teets

drift learns from starling murmurations

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Franchise Freedom, which showed over LACMA this past weekend, builds on more than two decades of research by DRIFT into starling murmurations. Each drone responds to its neighbors through a shared set of behavioral rules, producing patterns that remain fluid yet legible. The formation expands, compresses, and redirects, creating a field that is constantly reorganizing itself without a fixed center.

This logic finds a parallel in the architecture below. The David Geffen Galleries propose a horizontal organization where curatorial departments occupy a continuous plane. Circulation flows across the building without a dominant axis, distributing attention evenly across exhibitions. Spatial hierarchy gives way to adjacency, and the building operates as a network rather than a sequence.

drift lacma
the drone formation moves as a coordinated field of light above the museum

shared intelligence by over 1,000 drones

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The alignment between the installation by DRIFT and the new LACMA galleries becomes clear in how each defines structure. In DRIFT’s work, no single drone directs the composition. Form emerges through proximity and response, with each unit maintaining awareness of the group. The visual effect depends on this shared intelligence, where cohesion is maintained without central control.

The galleries apply a similar principle at an architectural scale. By flattening the institutional layout, the design places different collections in direct relation. Movement across the building is continuous, allowing visitors to construct their own paths. The spatial experience is shaped through connections rather than thresholds.

drift lacma
the performance draws from research into starling murmurations

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project info:

name: Franchise Freedom

artist: DRIFT | @studio.drift (Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta)

museum: LACMA | @lacma

location: Los Angeles, California

date: April 18th, 2026

photography, video: Pablo Garcia, Albert Azouz, Bo Bridges, Complex Aerial, Davis Huber, Dillon Harmon, Elias Posada, Jake Howard, Joshua Ewalt, Mark Christian, Patrick Coyne, Pedro Castro, Sammie Saing, William Teets

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