by Eduardo Kac (Brazil – United States, 1994-1996)
It is an installation in which the participants control via webcam, the intensity of a generator of luminous energy, necessary for a growing plant to perform photosynthesis. The photons of cameras throughout the world are transported to the installation area and used, during the period of the exhibition, to germinate a small plant. Thus the experience creates a virtual collective ecosystem.
Eduardo Kac, Brazilian visual artist, resident in the United States. He works with so-called “transgenic art”. His work, a genetically modified phosphorescent female bunny, was a highlight of the exhibition Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at the Henry Art Gallery, at Washington University, in Seattle, in 2002.
by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau (Belgium - France, 1999)
An online interactive editor on which the users fill in a form with messages that in their turn transform into the genetic code of a collective and complex three-dimensional image. This “creature” enters a kind of a virtual herbarium, made up of other filled forms, based on verbs from various messages. Hence the name Verbarium.
Christa Sommerer, biologist born in Belgium, is a researcher at the Telecommunications Advanced Research Laboratory in Kyoto, Japan. Married to French artist Laurent Mignonneau, partner in her works, she uses principles of genetic engineering to produce beings that do not exist in nature. She is a teacher associated to Advanced Institute of Arts and Mediatic Sciences, Iamas, in Gifu, Japan.
by Diana Domingues – Grupo Artecno UCS (Brazil, 2004)
The installation explores mixtures of the real with the virtual, in a room with objects associated with a database of 20 international celebrities. When “offered” to a bar code reader installed on a table/altar, the objects send inputs processed by genetic algorithms. The morphogenetic chaotic process results in dynamic shapes that can be viewed through stereoscopic eyeglasses. A search device, triggered by words, incorporates to the morphing myths, phrases that translate the community’s thoughts regarding the chosen characters.
Grupo de Pesquisa Integrada Artecno (Integrated research group Artecno – NTAV LAB – Novas Tecnologias nas Artes Visuais da Universidade de Caxias do Sul (New technologies in Visual Arts at Caxias do Sul University) – NTAV Group 2004:
Coordinator: Diana Domingues – UCS/CNPq
Computing science: Eliseo Berni Reategui (DEIN/UCS); Gelson Cardoso Reinaldo – UCS (chief programmer); Gustavo Brandalise Lazzarotto – IC/CNPq (consulting programmer); Maurício dos Passos – IC/Fapergs (assistant programmer); Daniel José dos Santos
Arts and communication: Eleandra Gabriela Cavali – IC/CNPq; Elisabete Bianchi – UCS; Junius Kurtz –Pibic/CNPq; Luiz Fernando Oliveira – BIC/UCS; Mona Gazzola de Carvalho – BIC/UCS; Solange Rossa Baldisserotto – AT/CNPq
Mathematics:Patrícia Rigon – Pibic/CNPq
Acknowledgement: Fabiana Rossarola, UCS, CNPq
Fapergs and Transportadora: Translovatto
Diana Domingues is the chief professor of the Arts Department at Caxias do Sul University. Director of the New Technologies in Visual Arts group, she develops the research Art, Technology and Communication: Poetics, Us and Interactions in an action integrating the arts, computing and industrial automation areas. Since 1977 she has worked with electronic technologies (initially with video, videotext and computer) and her work is mainly focused on the migration of forms from one medium to the other.
by Michael Gleich, ZKM Center for Art And Media (Germany, 2002)
Web of Life artwork allows viewers to interact with an audio-visual environment by their imparting to it the unique patterns of their individual hand lines. The process symbolizes the action of connecting oneself to a network of relations. This audio-visual environment is formed by a conjunction of projected three-dimensional computer graphics and video images. Interaction is effected via a hand scanning user interface.
This artwork is configured as a distributed network of installation – one large-scale environment situated permanently at the ZKM, and four others designed to travel around the world. User interaction at any location communicates with and affects the audio-visual behavior of all the installations.
