Benign Nor Hostile, Merely Indifferent is designed to examine human relationships to the physical world as mediated by technological interactions and scientific observation. This piece is an elaborate means of viewing or not viewing a microcosmic struggle that is beyond the control of the individual viewer. A critical exploration of a societal fascination with digitized experience, Benign Nor Hostile, Merely Indifferent offers a glimpse into the changing nature of human relationships to our origins.

Benign Nor Hostile, Merely Indifferent is comprised of three systems:

1. Customized programming designed to analyze sound levels in individual quadrants of the gallery and convert them into digital signals and graphics representative of the frequency and loudness of sounds produced by viewers.

2. Purpose-built UV illumination system that converts the digital signals into UV light outputs.

3. E. coli Bacteria that have undergone a transgenic transformation (genetic modification) allowing them to fluoresce under UV light application. Under UV excitation the bacteria express in green and red.

Protista Imperialis is an interactive bio-sculpture that uses an elaborate technological apparatus to maintain or destroy itself depending on the interface between the viewer and the art. The work uses algae to represent the natural world, and the technological apparatus to signify the techno-sphere that mediates our societal relationship to the environment.

The piece offers the viewer a moral conundrum. By maintaining close proximity to the work and an active engagement of it, the viewer is able to sustain the life of the bio-sculpture. Once the viewer disengages from the piece, the apparatus reverts to a state in which the sculpture decays. This is achieved by utilizing motion-sensing technology that outputs a signal that is translated into high frequency tone when the viewers display apathy through non-movement or becomes removed from the viewing area. This high frequency tone has been shown to mitigate algae growth on a molecular level.

Protista Imperialis is designed to invert the seemingly prevalent belief that our societal relationship to the environment is being negatively impacted through mediation by the techno-sphere. The piece is intended to provide a contemplative space in which the viewer has the ability to sustain, or suspend the ability of the bio-sculpture to grow. In essence I aimed to produce a piece that would generate itself with active engagement of the viewer, or conversely be destroyed by apathetic interaction.

Human Geography v2.1 is a continuation of a collaboration, HG v1.1 executed through a differing process. These images represent the initial tests of utilizing sound to affect the production of photographic prints done through classical wet processes instead of digital fabrications as in v1.1.

Human Geography v2.1 attempts to visualize the conversations and sounds experienced between two people through photographic means. v2.1 is trying to reduce the technological mediation of the experience to a more direct and physical transfer of the experience depicted.

By utilizing digital photographic processes and audio visualization software, Human Geography represents a twelve-minute conversation.

Two computers were set up, each having a projector output and a microphone input. The conversation was converted into a visual representation via a malleable sound-processing program and then projected onto a surface from which they could be photographed.

As the conversation unfolded, the camera captured hundreds of images produced by the audio visualizer that were later combined to produce the images presented here.

This piece entitled JM101 – Distance continues my research into the role of the human being in the processes of the natural world. Some view humans as a net detractor from the intended course of biological development, while others argue that it was an inevitability, and thus a natural evolution, for humans to develop into creatures able to manipulate their physical surroundings, but more importantly modify the most essential elements of what defines biological life.

JM101 is a particular strain of E, coli. Itself usually defined by humans as a negative entity, one that has a destructive capacity. What is over looked is the actual function of E. Coli. It has a useful function in the body by suppressing the growth of harmful bacterial species and by synthesizing appreciable amounts of vitamins.

I’ve setup a paradox of existence. The piece is surrounded by something nourishing yet it is slowly destroying itself through an elaborate apparatus of control.

Like Protista Imperialis, I am attempting to bring an educated and aware viewer into a contemplative space where they can, on a microcosmic level, evaluate the human situation. We, like the E. coli are in a similar predicament. It asks what is life? What life is of value? What does it take to sustain it? Can anything be done to stop its destruction?