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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.
Bricolage
Nathan Thompson,
Sebastian Diecke,
Guy Ben-Ary
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In Bricolage we create autonomous, animated, living, biological entities that have the ability to self-assemble and are hosted in a suspended vessel (Incubator) custom made of clay, metal, and glass. These automatons are made from three main materials: blood, heart, and silk. They are made from bio-engineered human heart muscle cells that grow on bodies made of silk. The muscle cells beat in real time manipulating the automatons' movement.
Beating heart muscle cells are embedded into custom-made silk bodies and perform throughout the duration of the exhibition. Viewers are positioned submissively under the cellular performance, questioning the so called superiority of humans over non-human entities. The automatons have a strong physical presence in the gallery, where visitors can see them with their naked eye as we deliberately have grown them to a scale that doesn’t requires technological mediation (such as cameras, screens, or microscopes) to view their micro-performance.
The stem cells we used originated from a drop of blood. We reprogrammed white blood cells from human donors to become stem cells using stem cell technology and then used differentiation protocols to transform these cells to heart muscle cells. The automaton’s bodies are made of silk for one due to its inherent cultural associations but also its widespread use as a biomaterial.
The nature and relationship of the materials we use, blood, heart, and silk are the driving force behind the project. We believe that the biological sorcery, or alchemy, that enables the conversion of a drop of blood into a living animated entity is something that needs to be explored from a cultural perspective. This is an intriguing, challenging, and frankly, quite disturbing prospect.
Bricolages automatons are vital, ever changing, and alive. They explore the conceptual and practical relationships between life and perceptions of vitality, whilst at the same time confronting the viewer with their visceral performative presence.
Links: http://guybenary.com/work/bricolage
Beating heart muscle cells are embedded into custom-made silk bodies and perform throughout the duration of the exhibition. Viewers are positioned submissively under the cellular performance, questioning the so called superiority of humans over non-human entities. The automatons have a strong physical presence in the gallery, where visitors can see them with their naked eye as we deliberately have grown them to a scale that doesn’t requires technological mediation (such as cameras, screens, or microscopes) to view their micro-performance.
The stem cells we used originated from a drop of blood. We reprogrammed white blood cells from human donors to become stem cells using stem cell technology and then used differentiation protocols to transform these cells to heart muscle cells. The automaton’s bodies are made of silk for one due to its inherent cultural associations but also its widespread use as a biomaterial.
The nature and relationship of the materials we use, blood, heart, and silk are the driving force behind the project. We believe that the biological sorcery, or alchemy, that enables the conversion of a drop of blood into a living animated entity is something that needs to be explored from a cultural perspective. This is an intriguing, challenging, and frankly, quite disturbing prospect.
Bricolages automatons are vital, ever changing, and alive. They explore the conceptual and practical relationships between life and perceptions of vitality, whilst at the same time confronting the viewer with their visceral performative presence.
Links: http://guybenary.com/work/bricolage
With thanks to: Mr. Callum Siegmund, for his support and advice. Dr. Ben Allardyce who supported the project as part of an ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub grant, Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria for supplying the Aqueous Silk. Dr. Rodney Dilley, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Surgery, UWA for his support and advice. Mark Thompson, for his help with fabrication and construction. Mr. Hugh Frazer for assistance with the incubator control code. Dr. Marck Norret, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UWA, for his support and advice.
Video editing: Moti Vidan
Soundtrack: Ergonomic Sound Office
The project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The state government of Western Australia through the Department of Culture and the Arts. Bricolage is hosted by SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia.
Video editing: Moti Vidan
Soundtrack: Ergonomic Sound Office
The project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The state government of Western Australia through the Department of Culture and the Arts. Bricolage is hosted by SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia.
Nathan Thompson (AU) is a multi-disciplinary artist exploring the possibilities of man/machine interaction and the hidden corners that arise from this relationship. Mostly he implements machine/robots that play along the blurred edge of the interactive while showing independent thought, only slightly tethered to the audiences actions. Guy Ben-Ary (AU) is a researcher at SymbioticA at UWA and is recognized internationally as a major artist and innovator working across science and media arts. Guy is interested in how art has the potential to initiate public debate on the challenges arising from the existence of liminal lives and creates artworks designed to problematize current and emergent bio-technologies’ influence on the shifting forces that govern and determine life, death, and sentience. Sebastian Diecke (DE) is the head of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Platform at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin. The institute focuses on molecular mechanisms of diseases and developmental processes in general. Sebastian provides services around reprogramming, differentiation in different tissue types, and genetic manipulation of the pluripotent cells for the researchers of the institute.