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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
capacity for (urban eden, human error)
Allison Kudla
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This system uses a custom-built computer-controlled four-axis positioning table to “print” bio-architectural constructions out of moss and seeds. Suspended in a clear gel growth medium, the moss begins 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 also working to realize 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.
The software of the piece began as a Processing application created by Mitchell Whitelaw that was modified to export code that communicated with Mach3. Mach3 is the CNC control software for the machine.
The structure was custom-made using aluminum extrusion rod, plastic and glass. For the mechanics, a rack and pinion system was implemented and a four-axis motor driver kit complete with stepper motors was mounted to the frame. The extruding mechanism, designed by Ryan Wolfe, uses a linear stepper motor, a custom circuit and an Arduino to communicate with Mach3.
Poetics of the Code
The Eden growth model is a surface fractal that has been used to describe bacterial growth. As stated by Philip Ball in “The Self-Made Tapestry”: “Watching a bacterial colony grow is like watching a city expand into urban sprawl, except that it happens in days rather than decades. The inhabitants of the colony multiply and what drives this multiplication and growth is a supply of food.” This association has also been made by applied mathematicians and urban designers. In his essay “Connecting the Fractal City” Nikos A. Salingaros writes: “Living cities have intrinsically fractal properties, in common with all living systems.”
Links: www.allisonx.com
The software of the piece began as a Processing application created by Mitchell Whitelaw that was modified to export code that communicated with Mach3. Mach3 is the CNC control software for the machine.
The structure was custom-made using aluminum extrusion rod, plastic and glass. For the mechanics, a rack and pinion system was implemented and a four-axis motor driver kit complete with stepper motors was mounted to the frame. The extruding mechanism, designed by Ryan Wolfe, uses a linear stepper motor, a custom circuit and an Arduino to communicate with Mach3.
Poetics of the Code
The Eden growth model is a surface fractal that has been used to describe bacterial growth. As stated by Philip Ball in “The Self-Made Tapestry”: “Watching a bacterial colony grow is like watching a city expand into urban sprawl, except that it happens in days rather than decades. The inhabitants of the colony multiply and what drives this multiplication and growth is a supply of food.” This association has also been made by applied mathematicians and urban designers. In his essay “Connecting the Fractal City” Nikos A. Salingaros writes: “Living cities have intrinsically fractal properties, in common with all living systems.”
Links: www.allisonx.com
Allison Kudla (US) is an artist-in-residence and educator for the Center for Experimental Media Arts at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology Bangalore, India. She holds a bachelor of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2002, and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS). In her most recent projects, she has been exploring the combination of traditional pattern-making and plant tissue culturing to make hybrid living installations.