Speculative Evolution, Prototype 1

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival
Speculative experiment on a future ecosystem under strict control. The narrative takes place in a simulation, 30 years in the future, where artificial intelligence and synthetic biology collaborate to optimize an environment for cultivated species. An AI-powered simulator helps visitors generate new species to balance the ecosystem. Inspiration comes from the book Under the White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert and artists’ stories about life on a damaged planet.

Bio

Marc Lee is a Swiss artist focused on real-time rendered audiovisual installations, AR, VR and mobile applications, critically exploring creative, cultural, social, ecological, political and speculative themes. His work has been exhibited in important museums and new media art spaces. Shervin Saremi is an Iranian musician and audio engineer specializing in sonic computing, procedural sound design and production. Currently researching immersive audio at UdK Berlin.

Encapsulated environmental system: Paludarium YASUTOSHI
This machine is fully equipped with a mist machine as if wrapping plants in a fog from both sides and drip feed-water system which can be activated depending on the situation in order to maintain the condition of a plant and control inside temperature and humidity. Also the cylindrical shape can fully capture the natural light by 365°angles from glasses, and it can correspond to plant growth by having the series’ largest scale of height. Fans on the ceiling play a role of wind, and a plant can listen music from the waterproofed speakers. The machine takes in essential elements – rain, wind, light and sound – by artificial means and completes a small world where its ecological cycle is condensed. It enables us to admire the beauty of the plants by not being affected by external environment.

Biologizing the Machine
In Biologizing the Machine (tentacular trouble), the artist uses a stretched leather-like kelp to create hanging incandescent sculptures that conjure up images of organisms such as human organs and insect eggs through chrysalis-like pods within which animatronic insects flutter about. The use of this material calls attention to the ecological history and exciting potential uses of algae, a powerful and shapeshifting entity comprising the largest biomass on the planet. The ground beneath evokes a swamp (not too dissimilar from the watery underbelly of Venice) from which these organisms and other primordial beings may have come.

Synthetic Pollenizer
The Synthetic Pollenizer project Intervenes in real-world ecological systems using robotic flowers to Integrate in the reproductive cycle of local flora, these imitations offer a manufactured nectar supplement while attaching locally harvested pollen to bees.

Power Plants
Hito Steyerl’s series of projects at the Serpentine Galleries is positioned around ideas of ‘power’. Beginning from the premise that ‘power is the necessary condition for any digital technology’, the artist considers the multiple meanings of the word, including electrical currents, the ecological powers of plants or natural elements, and the complex networks of authority that shape our environments. She addresses the notion of power through three interrelated research strands and projects: Actual Realityos, a collectively-produced digital tool; Power Walks, a series of guided walks and a tour that draws upon conversations with campaigners, community groups and organizations in the local area surrounding the Serpentine, and finally this exhibition, Power Plants, which features new video installations created using artificial intelligence trained to predict the future.

INDUSTRIAL CREEPER

On the site we envision a antagonistic dialogue between the seemingly biologic units and its abiotic architectural foundation. The units find a home intertwined amongst the predictable regularity of the steel configuration remeniscent of a deteriorating and outdated technological era whose remnants can be found scattered across downtown Los Angeles. These old industrial artifacts, derived from sheer function, act as an all too familiar platform by which the occupant interacts with this new synthetic ecological system. Throughout the site, we see the units stretched and twisted in an extraodinary demonstration of elasticity. In this way, the building lingers in a constant state of mediation between the past and the future; succombing to the complex configuration of the aggressive industrial creeper.

Eco Warriors

A Beginner’s Guide for Eco Warriors is inspired by the current dramatic changes in Earth’s ecosystem due to the human impact, the so-called age of Anthropocene. This short film represent, with certain level of exaggeration, tips and inspirations how to lower your ecological footprint and contribute to the slowing down of global warming and the protection of natural habitats. This short film then becomes a small guide for Eco Warriors and urges for reflection and reaction from each of us.

The Admiral’s Garden
Christine Ödlund’s work explores the borders of our knowledge of the world around us, connecting such themes as the chemical communication of plants, synaesthesia and theosophy. She works in a variety of media, including drawing, sculpture, video, watercolour and sound works.
Stress Call of the Stinging Nettle: When a plant reacts to a butterfly larvae feeding on its leaves, it releases chemical substances, or compounds. The characteristics of these compounds have been analyzed in collaboration with the Ecological Chemistry Research Group at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and then transposed into amplitude and intensity of sinus tones, recorded at EMS (Electroacoustic Music in Sweden), Stockholm. Thus these beautiful graphic score and soundtrack by Swedish artist Christine Ödlund are direct transpositions of “the plant’s life, struggle and death”.

when you are close to me i shiver
sound design: Alexander Martinz
“when you are close to me I shiver” is an algorithmically controlled live simulation, a real-time generated virtual reality that takes place in a version of the future in which humans, out of desperation, gather in masses on the last remaining piece of land. Inspired by the walrus scene in the documentary “Our Planet” narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, the project proposes an intense scenario encompassing our environmental and personal crises. It reflects on how we identify and connect ourselves in different realities while addressing the human condition in a world in ecological and therefore social crisis. On the tablets, virtual cameras scan the environment from various point of views, like surveillance drones. On the main screen, a similar camera randomly targets and focuses on different situations while a familiar voice-over narrates the tragic story.

Fabian von Spreckelsen is a young innovative artist and designer who was educated at the College of Fine Arts in Maastricht. He currently handcrafts welded sculptures and creates limited editions using only the finest leather and steel in a shared Studio in Maastricht. His fascination and love for mother earth, its elements and time play a crucial role throughout his collections. Nature and his love for the ‘Milano Chic’ can be clearly recognised in his clear cut lines that are coupled with a post modernist ecological feel.

Adaptive Urban Ecologies
Adaptive ecologies explores the emergent logics of adaptation and evolution that are constitutive of ecosystems in nature. Chimera’s vision is to define an urban ecosystem which supports housing and cultural programs and has the ability to adapt, transform, mutate, and adjust according to the specific urban and social character of the site and of Manhattan. This urban ecological system is taking as a model an organism in nature, specifically the mangrove plant.

Hidden Gems
Transforming the mopo oil reserve base, south korean designer hyuntek yoon of nooyoon has created a cultural and recreational cluster on the site. Located in sangam, north west of seoul, the abandoned area was previously filled with waste until the 2002 work cup which saw it turn into an an ecological park, digital media city, and world cup stadium. ‘Hidden gem’ seeks to revitalize the last piece of waste-land for public use. The project is based on the following questions: how can five oil tanks be transform to embed recreational programs and how can multiple activities interrelate and operate with each other?