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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.
Resurrecting the Sublime
Christina Agapakis,
Sissel Tolaas,
with support from IFF Inc.,
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
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Could we ever again smell flowers driven to extinction by humans? *Resurrecting the Sublime* is a collaboration between a team from biotechnology company Ginkgo Bioworks led by Dr. Christina Agapakis, artist Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, and smell researcher and artist Sissel Tolaas, with support from IFF Inc.
Immersive installations allow the visitor to smell extinct flowers, lost due to colonial activity: the *Hibiscadelphus wilderianus* or *Maui hau kuahiwi*, a flowering plant in the Malvaceae family, was indigenous to the southern slopes of Mount Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaii. Its forest habitat was decimated by colonial cattle ranching and the last specimen of the tree was found dying in 1912. The *Orbexilum stipulatum* or Falls-of-the-Ohio Scurfpea, was last seen in 1881 on Rock Island in the Ohio River, before US Dam No. 41 erased the island in the 1920s. The *Leucadendron grandiflorum (Salisb.) R. Br.* was last seen in a collector’s garden in London in 1806. Its original habitat on Wynberg Hill, behind Table Mountain, South Africa, had already been lost to colonial vineyards.
Using DNA from flower specimens at Harvard University's Herbaria, the Ginkgo team used synthetic biology to predict gene sequences that encode for fragrance-producing enzymes. Tolaas then reconstructed the flowers' smells, using identical or comparative smell molecules. We know which molecules the flowers may have produced, but the amounts are also lost. In Ginsberg's installation designs, the fragments of each flower's smell mix: there is no "exact" smell. The lost landscape is reduced to its geology and the flower's smell. Entering the installation, the human connects the two and, contrary to a natural history museum, becomes the specimen on view.
Resurrecting the smell of extinct flowers so that humans may again experience something we destroyed is awesome and terrifying—it evokes the "sublime." But this is not de-extinction. Instead, smell and reconstructed landscapes reveal the complex interplay of species and places that no longer exist. *Resurrecting the Sublime* asks us to contemplate our actions, and potentially change them for the future.
Links: https://resurrectingthesublime.com
Immersive installations allow the visitor to smell extinct flowers, lost due to colonial activity: the *Hibiscadelphus wilderianus* or *Maui hau kuahiwi*, a flowering plant in the Malvaceae family, was indigenous to the southern slopes of Mount Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaii. Its forest habitat was decimated by colonial cattle ranching and the last specimen of the tree was found dying in 1912. The *Orbexilum stipulatum* or Falls-of-the-Ohio Scurfpea, was last seen in 1881 on Rock Island in the Ohio River, before US Dam No. 41 erased the island in the 1920s. The *Leucadendron grandiflorum (Salisb.) R. Br.* was last seen in a collector’s garden in London in 1806. Its original habitat on Wynberg Hill, behind Table Mountain, South Africa, had already been lost to colonial vineyards.
Using DNA from flower specimens at Harvard University's Herbaria, the Ginkgo team used synthetic biology to predict gene sequences that encode for fragrance-producing enzymes. Tolaas then reconstructed the flowers' smells, using identical or comparative smell molecules. We know which molecules the flowers may have produced, but the amounts are also lost. In Ginsberg's installation designs, the fragments of each flower's smell mix: there is no "exact" smell. The lost landscape is reduced to its geology and the flower's smell. Entering the installation, the human connects the two and, contrary to a natural history museum, becomes the specimen on view.
Resurrecting the smell of extinct flowers so that humans may again experience something we destroyed is awesome and terrifying—it evokes the "sublime." But this is not de-extinction. Instead, smell and reconstructed landscapes reveal the complex interplay of species and places that no longer exist. *Resurrecting the Sublime* asks us to contemplate our actions, and potentially change them for the future.
Links: https://resurrectingthesublime.com
Christina Agapakis (USA) of Ginkgo Bioworks, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (UK), and Sissel Tolaas (NO) with support from IFF Inc.
Ginkgo Bioworks: Natsai Audrey Chieza, Grace Chuang, Jason Kakoyiannis, Dr. Jason Kelly, Scott Marr, Krishna Patel, Kit McDonnell, Dr. Christian Ridley, Dr. Dayal Saran, Atsede Siba, Dr. Dawn Thompson, Dr. Jue Wang. DNA Synthesis: Twist Bioscience. Paleogenomics: Dr. Joshua Kapp and Dr Beth Shapiro, Paleogenomics Lab, University of California, Santa Cruz. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg: Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Ana Maria Nicolaescu, Johanna Just, Ness Lafoy, Ioana Mann, Stacie Woolsey, Nicholas Zembashi. Film Editing: Inferstudio Sound design: Sam Conran. With thanks to: Dr. Michaela Schmull, Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge.
Ginkgo Bioworks: Natsai Audrey Chieza, Grace Chuang, Jason Kakoyiannis, Dr. Jason Kelly, Scott Marr, Krishna Patel, Kit McDonnell, Dr. Christian Ridley, Dr. Dayal Saran, Atsede Siba, Dr. Dawn Thompson, Dr. Jue Wang. DNA Synthesis: Twist Bioscience. Paleogenomics: Dr. Joshua Kapp and Dr Beth Shapiro, Paleogenomics Lab, University of California, Santa Cruz. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg: Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Ana Maria Nicolaescu, Johanna Just, Ness Lafoy, Ioana Mann, Stacie Woolsey, Nicholas Zembashi. Film Editing: Inferstudio Sound design: Sam Conran. With thanks to: Dr. Michaela Schmull, Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge.
Dr. Christina Agapakis (US) is a synthetic biologist, artist, and writer who has been involved in the synthetic biology community for over a decade. She is Creative Director of Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology company based in Boston, designing made-to-order microbes for applications in industrial technology, agriculture, food, and health.
Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (UK) is an artist working across disciplines and media to explore the human values that shape design, science, technology, and nature. Through installations, writing and curatorial projects, Daisy examines why we make things, what those things are, and their relationship with us and the world.
Sissel Tolaas (NO) has been working, researching, and experimenting intensively with the topic of smell since 1990. Sissel is a pioneer and unique in her approach to smells. She has developed a wide range of revolutionary projects worldwide and established the SMELL RE_searchLab Berlin in January 2004, supported by IFF Inc.
Dr. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg (UK) is an artist working across disciplines and media to explore the human values that shape design, science, technology, and nature. Through installations, writing and curatorial projects, Daisy examines why we make things, what those things are, and their relationship with us and the world.
Sissel Tolaas (NO) has been working, researching, and experimenting intensively with the topic of smell since 1990. Sissel is a pioneer and unique in her approach to smells. She has developed a wide range of revolutionary projects worldwide and established the SMELL RE_searchLab Berlin in January 2004, supported by IFF Inc.