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Healing
Series HEALING The pieces in the Healing series explore interaction and integration: the changes, both destructive and regenerative, that happen when things interface with each other. They are interactive floor projections with patterns that change in response to visitors. When visitors walk across, the patterns pull away, creating wounds. When
left alone, the patterns grow to cover these wounds. In each of the
pieces, however the patterns grow back in different ways. This work is related
to the research being done on artificial intelligence and artificial
life, but the path and the goal are different. Most explorations in
these fields attempt to create human-like intelligence and behaviour,
and in so doing they use more and more complex algorithms and techniques.
In contrast, with these pieces I am focusing on the complexity possible
with very simple rules. The patterns and their growth are completely
emergent phenomena; they arise from the mathematical equations that
the software simulates. The basis for these equations comes from biological
and chemical models of molecular interactions, interactions that are
at the core of all living things. By amplifying them and making them
visible and accessible, they become metaphors for human behaviour and
interaction. These pieces are
not life-forms, but they exhibit life-like behaviours, behaviours that
are simple in their goals—to grow—but complex and subtle in their
realization—how the piece actually grows and reacts to visitors.
Visitors quickly understand how the pieces react to them, but the subtlety
creates many possible, often surprising, interactions. Visitors enjoy
playing with the pieces and exploring new ways of interacting with them.
They experiment and watch and learn from each other. The pieces encourage
them to interact not only with the carpet but with each other. HEALING 1 Healing 1 looks like a glowing carpet or mat with a unique organic pattern. When
it encounters a foreign body, such as a gallery visitor, the pattern
on it pulls away, creating a wound. When the foreign body leaves, the
pattern heals itself and the wound closes but the sides of the wound
never actually touch. A scar remains—a memory of the interaction
between the visitor and the mat. Over time the scar may be eradicated,
but it has a permanent effect on the pattern's growth. At any moment
the pattern is the result of both the underlying algorithms and all
the interactions that have occurred up until that moment. HEALING 2 Healing 2 looks like a carpet or mat with a softly glowing skin. When it encounters
a foreign body, such as a gallery visitor, the skin pulls away, creating
a wound. When the foreign body leaves, the skin slowly heals itself,
distilling the wound down to its essence and eventually removing all
traces of the interaction. HEALING 3 Healing 3 looks like a carpet or mat filled with an organic pattern of glowing
dots. When it encounters a foreign body, such as a gallery visitor,
the dots pull away, creating a wound. When the foreign body leaves,
the dots spontaneously generate in the open space, quickly and violently
covering the naked areas. The piece never looks
the same twice; at any moment the pattern is the result of both the
underlying algorithms and all the interactions that have occurred up
until that moment. HEALING POOL Healing Pool uses custom algorithms to create a glowing pool of organic patterns
on the floor. Left alone, the patterns slowly pulsate and shift over
the course of each day. When a person walks across the piece the patterns
tear apart and rebuild themselves, but never exactly as before. The
change is similar to a scar left behind when a wound heals. Thus the
pool holds a history, or memory, of all the interactions that have occurred
since the piece was first turned on. Like the Lincoln
Memorial Reflecting Pool, this project serves as a type of memorial,
a constantly evolving record of change that honours the minuscule ways
in which the slightest interactions—no matter how small or unintentional—have
some impact. It is also an examination of how each person is, like the
pool, a manifestation of everything that came before. This project was generously supported by both the Creative Capital Foundation and the MacDowell Colony. |
>> Table of Contents edited by B. Mancini, J. Weirsman Healing Series Brian Knep 276-278 R.U.N.: A Short Statement on the Work Paul Gazzola 279-282 Castings: A Conversation Deborah Margo, Bianca Scliar Mancini and Janita Wiersma 283-308 Matter, Manner, Idea Sjoerd van Tuinen 309-334 On Critique Brian Massumi 335-338 Loco-Motion Andrew Murphie 339-341 An Emergent Tuning as Molecular Organizational Mode Heidi Fast 342-358 |
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