V2_ Knowledgebase

David de Buyser's project Acoustic Mirror_Moss, subsidized by the Flemish Community, brings technology and biology together in several ways. First, the project’s longterm goal is an installation that uses vertical moss carpets for the projection of computer-generated images. The cultivation phase, however, features several subprojects that also forge interesting relationships between technology and biology. For instance, David recently developed a MAX/MSP-driven irrigation system to provide a constant supply of water to the moss in the installation at the Visual Arts Academy in Anderlecht.

The Active Phytoremediation Wall System is a modular system of pods, housing hydroponic plants. Its main purpose is to encourage airflow and contribute to the quality of life through its air cleaning capacities. The project is a result of a collaborative research between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. It is a bio-mechanical hybrid system that produces ‘fresh air’ from within buildings, thereby reducing the energy consumption. Because the plants’ roots are exposed, instead of being buried in soil, the plants’ air-cleaning capacity increases by 200 to 300 percent. The pods themselves are made from vacuum-formed plastic, and the form allows the maximum amount of air to reach the root rhizomes while using the minimum amount of material. It also creates a beautiful base for the plants. The wall system can be installed in large commercial interiors, but works equally well in small settings—a four-module system in an apartment would have the impact of 800 to

ecoLogicStudio’s installation for AILATI 2010 has been developed in collaboration with the Global Footprint Network group. We aren’t surprised to discover, through data, that the world is going towards a continuous increase of consumption of resources in relation to the biosphere’s capacity. Nevertheless we are wondering, which processes and stories could define this tendency and which are the relations between debtor countries and creditor ones? Most of the political choices today are based on data and graphics shown in these images; how can the single citizen take part in these decisions while interacting with his daily processes, his histories and his inventions? Can technology act as an intermediary, generating devices that link city, architecture and landscape with politics, society and environment? The “ECO-FOOTPRINT DATA GROTTO MACHINE” focuses on the representation in a relational architectonic system, parametrically designed, of the ecological footprint data.

Annamaria Weldon is a West Australian poet who also writes and publishes in other genres, and has done since her first feature article appeared in 1978. Working with words in different ways, she’s developed the writing practice which has sustained her for more than thirty years through changes of career, home life and location.

BBa_K221000 is a sequence of DNA that produces an enzyme called geosmin, which is responsible for the smell of wet earth when it begins to rain. When BBa_k221000 is transformed (injected) into the DNA of E. coli bacteria, it transforms the bacteria into “living machines” that produce the smell of rain. The mystique surrounding the aroma of the Indian monsoon is encoded as a genetic sequence. This is an artistic investigation into the narrative and promises of synthetic biology. The installation comprises a mobile DIY bio lab housed in a geodesic dome. The lab is equipped with all the facilities needed to perform rudimentary genetic engineering and is built entirely out of hacked, local, homemade consumer electronics. The bacteria / “living machines” are grown inside the lab in a custom-made incubator inviting the audience to engage, up-close in critical debates around such forms of biotechnologies. The lab also functions as a pedagogical space and artist studio, as it hosts artists’ workshops and performances and also facilitates the conceptual development of artworks that are produced by borrowing tools and methodologies from the life sciences. This mobile bio lab is collapsible and can be re-assembled in a day. The entire process of building the lab is documented and made available at http://artscienceblr.org or http://hackteria.org/wiki

Biomodd is an art project that integrates cross-cultural dialogue, ecology and technology while encouraging innovative collaboration. I and artist, scientist, and TED Fellow Angelo Vermeulen led a Biomodd workshop as part of the KIBLIX Festival and theInternational Computer Arts Festival in Maribor, Slovenia, from November 18th to the 28th, 2010. The workshop resulted in an installation piece which was exhibited at KIBLA until mid-December. Over the course of ten days, we disassembled old computers, tested computer components, installed Ubuntu (or in the case of some really old motherboards, Xubuntu) on them, designed and built different structures that incorporated plants and computers together, troubleshot algae, and met up and had long discussions with other new media artists participating in the festival.

This system uses a computer controlled four-axis positioning table to “print” intricate bio-architectural constructions out of moss and seeds. Suspended in a clear gel growth medium, the moss continues to grow and the seeds sprout. The algorithmically-generated patterns drawn by the system are based on the Eden growth model and leverage mathematical representations of both urban growth and cellular growth, thereby connecting the concept of city with the concept of the organism. This project is working to make concrete the idea of dynamic and fluid computer space altering the expression and formation of a living and growing biological material, via its collaboration with an engineering mechanism.

Christien Meindertsma explores the life of products and raw materials. For her first book, Checked Baggage (2004), Christien purchased a container filled with a week's worth of objects confiscated at security checkpoints in Schiphol Airport after 9/11. She meticulously categorized all 3267 items and photographed them on a white seamless background. Christien’s second book, PIG 05049 (2007), is an extensive collection of photographic images that documents an astounding array of products that different parts of an anonymous pig called 05049 could support. With this book, Christien reveals lines that link raw materials with producers, products and consumers that have become so invisible in an increasingly globalized world.

Earth: Art of a changing world is the second annual contemporary art season at 6 Burlington Gardens. The exhibition presents new and recent work from more than 30 leading international contemporary artists, including commissions and new works from the best emerging talent. Supporter's statement: "This second year of GSK Contemporary is an important collaboration between GlaxoSmithKline and the Royal Academy that builds on our long-standing support for the arts in the UK. Creativity and innovation are critical to our business of improving health and well-being, so we want this year's topic 'Earth' to encourage debate, discussion and creative thinking and the role art can play on the relevance that climate change has on our daily lives."

Flooded McDonald's is a film work by Superflex in which a convincing life-size replica of the interior of a McDonald's burger bar, without any customers or staff present, gradually floods with water. Furniture is lifted up by the water, trays of food and drinks start to float around, electrics short circuit and eventually the space becomes completely submerged.

Translator II: Grower is a small 'rover' vehicle which navigates around the periphery of a room. It hugs the room’s walls and responds to the carbon dioxide levels in the air by actually drawing varying heights of 'grass' on the walls in green ink. The Grower robot senses the carbon dioxide (CO2) level in the air via a small digital CO2 sensor. This sensor is mounted high on a wall of the exhibition space and sends data wirelessly to the robot. The number of people in an exhibit space breathing in oxygen and exhaling CO2 has an immediate effect on the sensor. My robot takes a reading of the CO2 level every few seconds and in response it draws a vertical line in green ink on the wall. The line height pertains directly to the level of CO2 (and therefore also the people traffic) in the space. The more CO2, the higher the line is drawn - the maximum height being 1ft. Once Grower completes a line, it moves forward several millimeters and repeats the process.

Hydra is a skyscraper that investigates the possibility of creating a power plant that uses hydrogen as source of energy. The international community recognizes hydrogen as a key component of sustainable energy system for the transportation, industrial, residential, and commercial sectors. The power is produced through electrolysis and could be stored in batteries and transported by truck, pipes or cables. Another interesting part is that the by-product of the process is clean water.

Based on the BEAM robotics (Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, Mechanics) the exhibition depicts a series of over 100 small autonomous robots with different morphologies and characteristics. A large installation shows 50 cricket-like small robots imprisoned in droplet glass shapes creating a kind of jungle sound environment. Other robots look like small trees or move around like insects. BEAM robotics is presented here as a new kind of (artificial) life.

Jae Rhim Lee is a visual artist, designer, and researcher whose work proposes unorthodox relationships between the mind/body/self and the built and natural environment. Jae Rhim’s work follows a research methodology which includes self-examination, transdisciplinary immersion and dialogue, and diy design, ultimately taking the form of living units, furniture, wearables, recycling systems, and personal and social interventions.

Chris Bosse, Tobias Wallisser and Alexander Rieck founded the Laboratory for Visionary Architecture [LAVA] in 2007. It was established as a network of creative minds with a research and design focus and has offices in Sydney, Shanghai, Stuttgart and Abu Dhabi. LAVA explores frontiers that merge future technologies with the patterns of organisation found in nature and believes this will result in a smarter, friendlier, more socially and environmentally responsible future. The potential for naturally evolving systems such as snowflakes, spider webs and soap bubbles for new building typologies and structures has continued to fascinate LAVA – the geometries in nature create both efficiency and beauty. But above all the human is the centre of their investigations.