organism: making art with living systems

Upgrade! Scotland: ~ in the fields
Wednesday 31st October 2007
5.30 -7.30pm Dundee Contemporary Arts

“To describe a system is basically to construct a new one. What we do is to select and to focus… We attempt to condense specific moments into inventions of autonomous, cocooned systems .”

~ in the fields, Nicole Heidtke and Stefan Baumberger, is a partnership based in interdisciplinay practice combining: “art with science, philosophy with poetry and virtual with real architecture”. ~ in the fields have produced installations which collide research into natural phenomena, such as the growth of plants and organisms, with computer aided installations. One example:

ima flue (k) – Hybrid Lifeforms is an interactive computer based installation, which deals with the correlations between different life forms. It shows the idea of a mutual relationship between living plants, virtual life forms which are integrated in a robotic system, and the actions of human beings.

When the visitor comes close to one of the plants (the biological life form) the virtual life form, an abstract hummingbird, mounted on a robotic arm, approaches the plant and, therefore, the visitor. At the same moment the light in the installation space becomes brighter and the plants are watered. The visitor is thus able to change the short-term conditions for the virtual life form and the long-term conditions for the plants.

As in life, the viewer is able to see the hummingbird more clearly as it comes nearer. The image of the hummingbird as it approaches the plant increases in size until it is too big for the screen. At the same time, the shape of the hummingbird becomes looser in its polygon structures and the image is abstracted.
It is not possible to observe this beautiful scene of a buzzing hummingbird sucking nectar without almost touching the plant. If the viewer tries to make the hummingbird come close too often, the plants will have too much water and will eventually die after a few days or weeks.

Nigel Helyer´s Host, in which an audience of several crickets attend a lecture concerning the sex life of insects.

The lecture (by Dr Stuart Bunt – SymbioticA Scientific Director) is manifest as two wall sized DVD images projected through an array of insect cages. One DVD portrays a highly pixilated image of the lecturers face and has a sound track recorded directly from the speaker’s voice. The second soundtrack was recorded via electrodes connected directly to the aural nerve of a Cricket as it listened to the sex lecture. The recorded signal was then processed via an oscilloscope to give both a visual and sonic display of the insects’ nervous activity.

Adam Zaretsky´s 3 part documentary about his VivoArts lab, in particular the last one which focused on transgenic quail and pheasant embryology.

Part 1, 2 and 3.

David Bowen’s Fly Drawing Device installation produces drawings based on the subtle movements of houseflies.

When flies enter a small chamber sensors detect their movements. A micro-controller articulates a drawing arm in real time based on the fly’s movements. When a fly is no longer detected in the chamber the paper scrolls over and the device waits until a new fly enters the chamber to begin another drawing.

Via rhizome.

I’m so excited about this show! Phil Ross is a hero.

BIOTECHNIQUE Yerba Buena Center for the Arts October 25, 2007 – January 6, 2008

BioTechnique is an exhibition of art and biotechnology opening on October 25th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. BioTechnique materializes the nuanced issues and cultural implications surrounding biotechnology, presenting a visually rich assortment of organisms, semi living objects, and intricate life support systems.

link

NoArk is a research project exploring the taxono m ical crisis induced by life forms created through biotechnology.
NoArk takes the form of an experimental vessel designed to maintain and grow a mass of living cells and tissues that originated from different organisms.

This vessel serves as a surrogate body for a collection of living fragments; it can be seen as a tangible and symbolic ‘craft’ for observing and understanding a biology that combines the fa m iliar with the other. As opposed to classical methodologies of collection, categorization and display that are seen in Natural History museums, contemporary biological research is focused upon manipulation and hybridisation, and rarely takes a public form . NoArk uses cellular stock taken fro m tissue banks, laboratories, m useu m s and other collections. It contains a chi m erical ‘blob’ m ade out of m odified living fragments of different organis m s, which are living together in a techno-scientific body. Like the cabinets of curiosity that preceded the Natural History m useu m ’s refined taxono my NoArk’s unified collection of unclassifiable sub-organisms acts as a sy m bolic precursor to a new way of approaching a made nature.

The Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A) has explored the use of tissue technologies as a m ediu m for artistic expression since 1996, and in 2000 beca m e one of the core research projects at Sy m bioticA, The Art and Science Research Laboratory, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia (winner of the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica for Hybrid Art 2007). ARTRAGE Director Marcus Canning last collaborated with TC&A in 2003 as part of the BioFeel exhibition at PICA during the inaugural BEAP.

Have you recently experienced a heightened awareness of environmental concerns? Common symptoms may include: nausea, depression, feelings of helplessness, and increased fear of the words “polar,” “ice,” and “caps.” While there is as yet no cure for this condition, specialist Dr. Natalie Jeremijenko, of NYU’s Environmental Health Clinic, might be able to help. Since the clinic’s launch in February, Dr. Jeremijenko, along with her trained assistants, has been addressing the environmental anxieties of its visitors.

To be clear, Jeremijenko, 40, has a Ph.D., not an M.D. And the project is run under the auspices of NYU’s Art Department, not the School of Public Health. Her credentials as an artist and environ-mental activist, however, are solid. Since arriving in America in 1994, the Australian-born artist and engineer has been producing work that harnesses technology to make people’s interactions with the natural world more, well, interactive.

When visitors come to the clinic with an environmental health concern—like children’s exposure to lead—the clinic’s specialists don’t simply trot out advice about limiting exposure to paint chips (it’s a conceptual art project, not a health provider). “What differs,” says Jeremijenko, “is that you walk out with a prescription not for pharmaceuticals, but for actions and … referrals to interesting art, design, and participatory projects.” Concern about lead in the neighborhood might call for a prescription for planting sunflowers to detoxify the soil in the park where children play. The clinic then might ask for samples of the flowers to determine how many chemicals the plants had absorbed, while keeping detailed records that are available to the public. “The data is precisely not private—it has to do with the shared space, air, water, and environmental systems we inhabit.”

from Good Magazine : http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Portraits/mad_scientist

Wow!

One day about 20 years ago, a young biologist and filmmaker named Greg Marshall saw something while snorkeling along the coral reefs of Belize that fired his imagination. A small suckerfish known as a remora had attached itself to a much larger shark, and was “riding” along with the shark as it made its way around the reef. Marshall conceived the idea of attaching a small video camera to sharks and other sea creatures—and thus was born Crittercam, an invention that has offered breathtaking glimpses into the animal world. Two decades later, Crittercam imagery has been shown in a number of National Geographic Television films, while the concept of allowing animals to record data about themselves has been adopted by other scientists, whose pioneering work has made “animal-borne imaging” a cutting-edge tool for studying wildlife.

This fall, Marshall and National Geographic will host a three-day Animal-Borne Imaging Symposium (ABIS), which will bring together scientists from around the world to share ideas and discoveries from this new technology. As part of ABIS, National Geographic Live! will present film screenings, an exhibition, and other public events highlighting Crittercam and what it has taught us about the animal world.

link (via dorkbot-pgh)

Hybrid Insect MEMS (HI-MEMS) is a DARPA program focused on “Developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis.”

Yikes.

http://www.darpa.gov/mto/programs/himems

via: http://www.suicidebots.com

From ScienceDaily:

Recent research from Vidi researcher Josef Stuefer at the Radboud University Nijmegen reveals that plants have their own chat systems that they can use to warn each other. Therefore plants cannot be considered boring and passive organisms that just stand there waiting to be cut off or eaten up. Many plants form internal communications networks and are able to exchange information efficiently.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070925095313.htm