4. Section 1:
Material and Meaning
Systems Art and Land Art
Phenomenology
The Paradigm of the Screen
Emulation
Section 2:
Biological Systems Art
Behavioral Aesthetics :
The Poetry of Biological Systems
The Search for Luminosity
The Society for Plant Neurobiology
Encoding Information into Organisms
Capacity for (urban eden, human error)
Modulation and Cell Differentiation
Section 3:
Tending to Wild
Growth Pattern
Botanical Abstractions
Sampling Nature into Homogenous Units
Generative and Processual Art in a Biological Context
5.
6.
7.
8. “Watercolour was the ideal medium for the
spontaneous recording of transient atmospheric
effects, given the speed with which it could be
applied and its inherent luminosity.”
Lyles and Wilton referring to the stormy landscapes of J.M.W Turner and Thomas Girtin from the end of the Enlightenment Era, circa the end of the eighteenth
century. Section One
9. John Linnell, Primrose Hill, 1811. Pen, brown ink and brown wash with white highlights on paper. The Fitzwilliam Museu Section One
10. Jean Tingeuely Robert Smithson Otto Piene Doc Edgerton
Homage to New York (1960) Spiral Jetty (1970) Milwaukee Anemenome (1978) Milkdrop Coronet (1957) Section One
12. Brixey, Shawn and James Coupe. "Simulation to Emulation, Pioneering Telematic Art Forms of the 21st Century." Section One
13. “The paradigm shift that
emulation art suggests is the
inevitable result of hybrid art
research praxis at the
intersection of scientific
discovery, informatics and
aesthetics, as we seek to
understand the universe as
an operating system in which
we perpetually engage on
both a microcosmic and
macrocosmic level.”
Brixey, Shawn and James Coupe. "Simulation to Emulation, Pioneering Telematic Art Forms of the 21st Century." Section One
14.
15.
16. How can I emphasize a
biological paradigm
within an emulative arts
practice?
What are the behavioral
aesthetics and poetries
embedded in biological
systems?
18. Biological systems art is running along a parallel track to algorithmic, computational and
simulative art, but instead of expressing the modulation and output of algorithms with digital
computers, the output is emulative because it is expressed with genes, cells, and organisms.
Section Two
19. Biological systems art is running along a parallel track to algorithmic, computational and
simulative art, but instead of expressing the modulation and output of algorithms with digital
computers, the output is emulative because it is expressed with genes, cells, and organisms.
The cycles present in these works are not dependent on CPU clocking speeds or frame rates
but on the actual biophysically constrained time it takes for biological systems to evolve, grow, die,
etc.
Section Two
20. Biological systems art is running along a parallel track to algorithmic, computational and
simulative art, but instead of expressing the modulation and output of algorithms with digital
computers, the output is emulative because it is expressed with genes, cells, and organisms.
The cycles present in these works are not dependent on CPU clocking speeds or frame rates
but on the actual biophysically constrained time it takes for biological systems to evolve, grow, die,
etc.
Embedded within biological systems are the poetry and dialogue of the predictable versus
the emergent.
Section Two
21. Biological systems art is running along a parallel track to algorithmic, computational and
simulative art, but instead of expressing the modulation and output of algorithms with digital
computers, the output is emulative because it is expressed with genes, cells, and organisms.
The cycles present in these works are not dependent on CPU clocking speeds or frame rates
but on the actual biophysically constrained time it takes for biological systems to evolve, grow, die,
etc.
Embedded within biological systems are the poetry and dialogue of the predictable versus
the emergent.
Within biological systems, there is always repetition, which is perhaps why it becomes so
attractive to consider biological systems as machines or as being like clockwork. However,
precisely what makes biological organisms fascinating is their variability and the at times
unpredictable or seemingly random way this variability can be expressed inside of a prescribed
and recursive system.
Section Two
22. Differentiatio Genetics Communication
Inheritance Signaling and Response
n Evolution Permissions
Morphology Phenotypic Expression Decision-making
Germination Adaptation Sentience and Intelligence
Growth
Expression
Symbiotic and
Circulation Reproductive
Parasitic Relationships
Nutrient Transport Processes Co-evolution
Oxygenation Fertilization
The Process of Death
Circadian Catabolic Processes Senescence
Rhythms Respiration Decomposition/Decay
Waking and Sleeping Consumption Disease
Entropy
Section Two
25. In a way, the embryo is just a microcosm of
the cognitive world that we inhabit, the
world of signals that insistently urge us to
travel to one destination rather than
another, eschew some goals in favor of
others, hold some things to be true and
others false; in short, that moulds us into
what we are.
Leroi, Armand Marie. Mutants. Section Two
26. The plant’s dramatic gesture of I am opening a door to an
waking and sleeping becomes the imagined or potentially future
state that has yet to occur
signaling observed by the and creating situations or
technology that mediates the frames for us, the audience,
message to the acting sun in the to observe how the organic
plant’s universe. algorithms embedding in
living systems will adapt to
these complex and imagined
scenarios.
By equipping an organism with the ability
to make its own discoveries about itself
and its environment, I am generating a
feedback loop that is centered on the
organically algorithmic qualities of a
living system.
The Search For Luminosity (2005-7) Section Two
27. “To say a plant has a “behavior” or that it can “store
chemical information” would not cause
objection, but once a word like cognition is applied,
values become charged and people want to stand up
against the use of this term to apply to a plant.” This
same debate exists in machine learning or what is
also called artificial intelligence. Can a computational
or mechanical system have intelligence? In some
ways, this becomes its own epistemological rupture as
it seems to level hierarchies of higher and lower
organisms and between living and nonliving systems.
Quotation comes from an interview with Dr. Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh Section Two
28. “To live, to err, to
fall, to triumph, to
recreate life out of
life.”
Craig J. Venter’s Synthetic Cells watermarked wtih James Joyce’s quotation Section Two
29. “To live, to err, to
fall, to triumph, to
recreate life out of
life.”
What does
that bacteria
know of
those words?
Craig J. Venter’s Synthetic Cells watermarked wtih James Joyce’s quotation Section Two
31. Capacity for (urban eden, human error). 2011. As shown at Gallery Kapelicain Ljubljana, Slovenia. Section Two
32. Capacity for (urban eden, human error). 2011. As shown at Gallery Kapelicain Ljubljana, Slovenia. Section Two
33.
34. Why choose plants as the material
and meaning for these works of art?
What fundamental connections can
be explored between carrier/
modulator and genetics/epigenetics
and differentiation?
Could a time-based, algorithmic and
even digital work of visual art be
made without a human or computer
as its primary actors?
38. The premise for this work is
the merging of a living
botanical system with the
cultural legacy of botanical
motifs. By attempting to
structure a living organism
inside an abstraction of itself,
a poetic fractal of
consciousness, control, and
plasticity unfolds in time. The
essence or idealized structure
of a living system collides with
its material existence.
Section Three
40. Plant cells are totipotent. This means that, depending on the
ratio of auxins to cytokinins, the cells have the capacity to
differentiate into any organ in the plant. Through chemical
intervention, functional forumlas embedded in plant cells
allow for this quality to be manipulated:
cytokinins > auxins = leaves
cytokinins < auxins = roots
cytokinins = auxins = undifferentiated tissue
Section Three
47. The installation begins
harmoniously, yet the
structure is modulated,
and disrupted by the
varying behaviors,
growths, and
senescence processes
occurring in each unit.
The algorithms running
on the cells themselves,
as they strive to
reorganize themselves,
can be seen alongside
the algorithms of
contamination as
parasites grow quickly,
covering the plant tissue
and taking the plant’s
nutrients. The structure
for the work can no
longer be defined with
any precision.
Section Three
49. Due to the repetition of the pattern, the occupants to the space
witness a performative experiment of morphological and
ecological changes in each micro-environment over the duration
of the exhibit.
Section Three
50. Leaf tissue is too
Balance in sterility is achieved, Tissue is not sterilized sterilized and their
micro-organisms enough and hidden fungi and cells turn brown and
contaminating the leaf are not bacteria emerge, growing die.
present and leaf tissue over the healthy leaf tissue.
remains alive and growing. It takes about a week before
Fungi and Bacteria appear in a matter of cells show they are no longer
days and weeks and inhibit survival of the living.
Can live for months if there is enough
leaf tissue.
growth medium and can be transplanted as
well.
Section Three
51. Left: Leaves after being cut with bilaterally symmetrical dies. Right: Die sets. Section Three
52. The process of abstraction widens the granularity of a system, thing, or set of things so that what remains
is the unifying and similar essence of the thing being abstracted.
Left: Tobacco plant in aerial view. Right: Analogous abstraction composed of 4 petri dishes rotating around a central axis. Section Three
54. Growth Pattern was presented
in Hasselt, Belgium, from 21
November 2010 - 13 March
2011 at the Z33. The show was
titled Alter Nature: We Can and
was curated by Karen
Verschooren. The exhibition
showed the work of 20
international artists who were
manipulating, designing, or
displacing nature and biological
systems. For my presentation of
Growth Pattern, I worked at the
University of Hasselt, with
biologist Greet Clerx. The
process of creation or score for
the work was demonstrated in
November of 2010 to Greet
Clerx. When the work was
reproduced in January of 2011,
I was not present.
Greet Clerx at the University of Hasselt’s greenhouse with the tobacco plants, 2010. Section Three
55. Entropy is the final result,
confronting the audience
with the very living nature
of the work, suggesting
that attempting to control
a living system in the way
one can control the pixels
in a computer animation
is not only difficult but
also defeating the poetry
embedded in living
systems and the complex
interactions that occur in
their co-existing micro-
environments.
Final state of decay as presented at LABoral, Gijon, Spain. Section Three
60. Blossfeldt stands out as having begun, in a
methodical way, the process of finding
idealized and stylized forms within the natural
world and taking photographs of them. His
photographs transcend documentation of a
once living artifact to appear timeless and
otherworldly.
Karl Blossfeldt, Forsythia suspensa, 1929. Photogravure. Section Three
61. “The drawings of patients with Parkinsonism, as they are “awakened” by L-Dopa, form
an instructive analogy. Asked to draw a tree, the Parkinsonian tends to draw a small,
meager thing, stunted, impoverished, a bare winter-tree with no foliage at all. As he
“warms up”, “comes to”, is animated by L-Dopa, so the tree acquires vigor, life,
imagination—and foliage. If he becomes too excited, high, on L-Dopa, the tree may
acquire a fantastic ornateness and exuberance, exploding with a florescence of new
branches and foliage with little arabesques, curlicues, and what-not, until finally its
original form is completely lost beneath this enormous, this baroque, elaboration.”
Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat Section Three
62. In my artistic practice, I call for a serious re-evaluation of
many of the approaches to dealing with encoding
information into living systems. I place strong value on the
centuries of embedded biological software, agency,
resilience, and evolutionary data that is already residing in
every living system. The code guiding the organism is the
mystery to be unravelled, the plasticity to be explored, the
structure to marvel at and imagine futures from, and the
behavior to value, emphasize and render aesthetic.
Section Three
