digital art and philosophy #4

Digital Art and Philosophy #4Natural Aesthetics: BioArt, Biomimicry, Generative Art, SynBio.

Melanie SwanUniversity of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Gallery

Syllabus: http://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA

Image: Emese Szorenyi

Digital Art is anything involving computers and art

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Sub-categories of Digital Art

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Play, Performance, Virtual Reality

Natural Aesthetics: BioArt, Generative Art Identity, the Future

Information Visualization

Review: Philosophy of Digital Art

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1. Intro: Interactivity gives more direct access to perception

2. Information visualization: representing the unrepresented

3. Play, performance & virtual reality– Performance of identity and sociality – Unity of Apollo and Dionysius– Gamer mindset: optimism, motivation,

action, team-building– Ethics: act-based -> agent-based ->

situation-based– Existence of virtual reality artworks

Natural Aesthetics Topic Clusters

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BioArt

Micro-scale Biomimicry: Generative Art, Synthetic Biology

Macro-scale Biomimicry: Dwelling, The City, Spatiality

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Is this image of something real? What kind of real? Real life? Artificial Life? Synthetic Biology? Computer-

generated image?

Ongoing Theme of Distinguishing ‘What is Real’

Proliferation in the categories of realism

What is BioArt?

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• Artwork created using live tissue, bacteria, or other living organisms together with scientific processes

• Collaboration of artists and biologists

• Artists experimenting with biology as an artistic medium

Notable BioArtworks

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• Earmouse (1997)– Human ear grown on the back of a

mouse (science turned into art)• GFP (green-fluorescent protein) Art– Bunny (2000) – GlowCats (2011)

• Lawn Chair sculpture (2002)– Denise King, Carnivorous

Contraptions, Chlorophilia show

The Algae Opera (2012)Digital Design Weekend, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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• Interactive performance and audience consumption piece• Deep lung capacity of opera singer is perfect morphology for producing CO2 to

feed algae in a real-time experiment• BioArt as commentary: produced by Agri, a collaborative arts group examining

the future of agriculture

Tissue Engineered BioArt

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• Semi-Living Worry Dolls (Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr 2002 SymbioticA artistic laboratory)

• hymNext Designer Hymen Series (Julia Reodica 2006)

• BioArt Exhibition Issues– Maintaining wet bioart in a gallery– Technique-sharing with local biologists,

bioreactors– Living-matter transport (e.g.; UK Human

Tissue Authority)– Artist/Biologist collaboration (e.g; BioArt

Initiative RPI)

Special Guest Speaker!

11http://siembieda.com/

Healthy Art Lab Eco Art Practice

B.U.R.G. (Building User Response Gizmos)

12http://www.siembieda.com/burg.html

Site specific installation using energy data from a commercial building and small office components (computer, light, charger), and turning them into human systems (heart

and lungs). San Jose, CA 2010

Aesthetics in Fluorescent-staining

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Best Science Pictures of the Year

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Neuro-synaptic Computer Chip

3D CT Scan of Clam and Whelk Shell

MRI of Human Brain White Matter

• National Geographic coverage – 2012 International Science and

Engineering Visualization Challenge– 2009 BioScapes Microscope Imaging

Contest Water Flea Crown of Thorns

Biomimicry

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• Definition (bio: life, mimesis: imitate): Emulating or being influenced by nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements in order to solve human problems

• Wide-ranging levels of application– Materials: biomolecular interface– Organisms: cell, organ, structure– Ecosystem: species, environment– Planet and Universe: natural laws, energy,

complexity, turbulence

Biomimicryat the Macro Scale

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Biomimicry at the Macro Scale

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Himalayas Water TowerWinner Evolo 2012 Skyscraper Competition

http://www.evolo.us/competition/himalaya-water-tower/

Philosophies of Environment, Geography, Spatiality, and Place

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• Environmental philosophy – Branch of philosophy concerned with the

natural environment and human’s place within it

– General tenet: well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life

• Conceptual concerns– Defining, valuing, protecting, sustaining

environment and nature– Moral status of animals and plants

• Practical concerns– Overfished oceans, pesticides and

pollutants, extinction, deforestation

The Philosophy of Spatiality• Basic space– Mathematical space, distances between

cities, dimensions of home• Lived space– The world in which we move and find

ourselves at home– An experience not usually reflected upon,

like ‘lived time’ or the sense of having a body

– Personally and culturally-determined: close-talker, crowded elevator, lofty cathedral, open outdoors

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http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/methods-procedures/reflective-methods/guided-existential-reflection/spatial-reflection/

Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) and the Philosophy of Spatiality

• Perception is a process of continuous interaction between subject and surroundings (The Phenomenology of Perception 1945)

• Concept: originary self-experience– Everyday experience: we separate spatial

experience and self-consciousness, the world of things and the world of consciousness

– At their root, not two different realities; cannot be defined separately from each other

– There is an original spatializing - the originary self experience which is the experience identically of I and here (cannot experience an I without a here)

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Feeling at home, dwelling, belonging, placeness

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Natural Dwelling

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Living Treehouses (Fab Tree Hab) - Mitchell Joachim, Terreform (2003)

Tree Circus

Theory of Place: “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” (Heidegger 1951)

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• Theory and conceptualization of place • Feeling at home, placeness, dwelling• Central theme of dwelling1

– Not the conventional shelter or lodging– As human implacement, being ‘in’ place

• Dwelling makes becoming possible– The placeness of place– Meaningfulness of our being

• The manner in which we dwell is the manner in which we exist on Earth – as an extension of our identity, of who we are1Liu F. On Place-ness of Place: ‘Dwelling.’ The Sustainability Collection.

http://ijs.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.41/prod.461

Theory of Place: “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” (Heidegger 1951)

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• Virtual placeness– What is it to dwell online, to dwell virtually? – How can we build virtual spaces where we can

dwell meaningfully? – How can we dwell virtually with meaningful

placeness?

• Heidegger: extend our identity, authenticity, meaningfully become our true selves

• ‘Home’ trope in technology

Dwelling Virtually

Theory of Place: “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” (Heidegger 1951)

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• Placeless, non-place, homelessness, alienation– Due to the loss of the meaningfulness of

being (Letter On Humanism 1949) – Lost in the crowd voice, dwelling in

forgetfulness, dwelling here without experiencing dwelling here

– Our essence is lost to us, we are forgetting and not seeing the possibility of becoming our true being

Nihilism and Nietzsche

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• Nihilism: A viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless; placelessness, homelessness; life is meaningless

• Past values had lost their force and with that collapse, nihilism became an uncanny caller

• Madman with a lantern in the marketplace at noon: “God is dead”(The Gay Science 1882)

“Nihilism stands at the door, whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?” – The Will to Power (Nietzsche 1885)

“I can't go on. I'll go on.” - The Unnamable [The Unspeakable] (Samuel Beckett 1953)

The City

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• Over 50% people living in cities (2008); estimated 5 billion in 2030

http://www.unfpa.org/pds/urbanization.htm

The City

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Cities of the Future

MasdarEnergy City of the Future

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Philosophy of the City (2008)

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• Concerns of philosophy of the city– Link to philosophies of place and

environment– Seek ground for social ethics, political theory– Understand and resolve urban problems:

inequality, prejudice– Look at the relationship between place and

identity formation• Anti-urban theory: intractability of cities,

urban blight• EvoDevo: evolved vs designed space

"I am a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the city do."

(Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus, 230 d 3-4)

L’Enfant’s Plan of Wash DC

Rocinha favela, Rio de Janeiro

Foucault: Panopticism, Biopower and Disciplinary Power (Discipline and Punish 1975)

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• Panopticon: institutional building allowing unseen observation of all inmates– Internalizes self-monitoring, self-surveillance

• Society defined by micropower relations – Top-down biopower – Self-imposed disciplinary power

• Modern societies observe and normalize– Prison, factory, school, hospital, corporation– Ordered defined spaces and behaviors– Known and normalized what it is to be in this

space• Contemporary examples?

– Quantified self-tracking– Smartphone ID cards

Panopticon

Quantified Self Gadgetry

Reconfiguration of Space: Vertical Farms

32http://www.evolo.us/architecture/vertical-farm-in-san-diego/, http://www.verticalfarm.com/

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Reconfiguration of Space: Transportation

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Reconfiguration of Space: Seasteading

De Novo Production of Space

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• How should we organize our physical and virtual space: new venues and emergent models– Physical-world: co-working, co-housing– Online-world: social networks, Facebook,

Pinterest, Instagram– Virtual-world: video games, ARGs

• EvoDevo: deliberate or evolutionary layout of space? – Provide structure for organic growth– How to reduce bias in any model? – How to facilitate empowerment, agency,

choice?

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Implication for the Future: Ambient Real-Time Services

Financial Footprints — spending patterns in Spain during Easter 2011 by MIT Senseable City Lab with BBVA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJrRhEvP3EE

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Biomimicry at the Micro Scale

Digital Art Ontologies

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Human-created Program-created: Generative Art, AI art

Art about computing or technology Art displayed with technological means

Art created using a

Computer

Artificial Life (A-Life)

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• Definition– A field of study and an associated art form – Examines systems related to life, its processes, and its

evolution– Using simulations with software (AI), hardware

(robotics) or wetware (biochemistry, tissue engineering)• Artificial life imitates traditional biology by trying to

recreate some aspects of biological phenomena• Multiple practitioner audiences and work product

intentions• Continuum analysis: natural to artificial

Artificial Life (A-Life) - Science

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Framsticks (2010)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9WVF6c8E7c

Tentacular - Evolved Virtual Creatures (2007)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm2n_ped-TA

Artificial Life (A-Life) - Art

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Reading: The Further Exploits of AARON, the AI Painter (Harold Cohen, 1995)

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• Gantry-connected painting unit (C/LISP)• Declarative (this is an arm) and procedural

knowledge (how to connect an arm)

Ray Kurzweil and Harold Cohen (1967)

Reading: The Further Exploits of AARON, the AI Painter (Harold Cohen, 1995)

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• Is artificial life being creative? – What does an independent machine

intelligence do, given some knowledge of the world and rudimentary physical capabilities

– Is more possibility space illuminated? Philosophical issue: incomplete nature of representation

• Minimum conditions for a set of marks to function as an image?– Depends on the intentionality of the

mark generator

Reading: What is Generative Art? (Margaret Boden, 2009)

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• Defining the Social Space of Art– Progression of categories of digital art to

be considered art by the art world• Major traditional galleries accept that

traditional and CG-art are players in the same space– Harold Cohen’s AARON (Tate)– Edmonds’s work as a development of

ColorField painters (Washington DC)• London’s Kinetica gallery (2007)– Interactive, robotic, and kinetic art

What is Generative Art?

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• Art created with the use of an autonomous system– System independently determines features

Generative Art - Computers, Data, and Humanity | Off Book | PBS (2011)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0OK1GiI83s

Condensation Cube (Hans Haacke 1963)

Evolved Noise (Karl Sims 2012)

Generative Art

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77 Million Paintings (Brian Eno 2007)

• EvoDevo: top-down designed vs bottom-up evolved; building a garden or planting a seed

• Distinction between artist and works, rights, crowdsourced artworks (remix)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsAXBtH4wMY

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1. Regenerative Medicine: Tissue Engineering, Stem Cell Therapies, 3D BioPrinting (Focus: replacement)

2. Synthetic Biology (Focus: enhancement & de novo genesis)

3. Genetic Engineering: RNAi, Zinc Finger Nucleases, histone remodeling

4. Nanomedicine, Targeted Nanoparticles5. Era of Big Health Data: Omics6. Personalized Medicine and Crowdsourced health7. Biomolecular Interface: organic/inorganic hybrids

Contemporary Innovation in Biology

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• Is it all right to interfere with natural processes?– Have always been manipulating (e.g.; plant and

animal breeding), this is just a better way – What constitutes a qualitative change? Nodes: crop-

breeding, GMO, SynBio– Order of magnitude issue – how can we think of

change at the new paradigm level or order of magnitude level

• Is there a different set of concerns with de novo generation?

Philosophical Issues related to Innovation in Biology

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Synthetic Biology

• Definition: Synthetic biology (synbio) is – Design and construction of new biological entities such as enzymes,

genetic circuits, and cells, – Redesign of existing biological systems

• Biology as an engineering medium– Engineering principles applied to harness the fundamental

components of biology• Main approaches

– Metabolic engineering (bacteria produce diesel)– Extending E. coli capacity (yeast produces medicine)– Biomimicry (replicate biological function in synthetic systems)– de novo Synthesis (create new functionality)

“This century’s transistor”

Source: Swan, M. Synbio Revolution: Biology is the Engineering Medium, 6/26/11 http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2011/06/synbio-revolution-biology-is.html

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• Nature of reality and existence – Definition of ‘What is life?’ – How much DNA change is required for a sub-species or ‘different’

organism? Constellations of related organisms– What are living machines, synbio products in themselves?

• Ontological classifications– Organizing, naming, classifying modified and de novo plants and

organisms – Develop an ontology of the products of synthetic biology using

philosophy of language (e.g. theory of conceptual metaphors)– Redefining existing ontologies structured around outdated

paradigms: living/non-living, organic/non-organic

Philosophical Issues related to Synthetic Biology (Metaphysics)

Source: Philosophy and Synthetic Biology: Philosophical Problems and Concerns in Working With Living Organisms http://gcat.davidson.edu

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• Ethics– Safety, accountability, responsibilities, unintended

consequences, right to do this work (playing God?), dual-use debate

– Standard risk models appropriate? • Epistemology– How do I know that my methods are safe, etc.? – Limits on knowledge-seeking and dissemination?

• Axiology (values, valorisation)– Synthetic biology product ownership, patenting

Philosophical Issues related to Synthetic Biology (Other)

Source: Philosophy and Synthetic Biology: Philosophical Problems and Concerns in Working With Living Organisms http://gcat.davidson.edu

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• Epistêmê: Scientific knowledge, theory. Universal, invariable, context-independent

• Technê: Craft art, practice, technique. Pragmatic, variable, context-dependent, oriented toward production, doing

• Phronesis: Ethics. Deliberation about values with reference to praxis (the appropriate application of a skill)

• Poiesis Taking Action. To make, transform, do, produce, bring-forth (Heidegger: aletheia/truth/unconcealment, revealing)

Aristotle: Approaches to Knowledge

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle 1st c BC) http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/threeapproaches.htmhttp://psychsoma.co.za/learning_in_vivo/2009/09/techne-episteme-poiesis-praxis.html

I know how to do it

theoretically

I know how to do it

practically

I know when to do it

I do it

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• Contemplated knowledge-based action-taking1

– What are we actually doing?– What are living machines good for?– What are they in themselves?

• Practice standards– Signing, documenting work

• Goal– Deliver function, safety, and beauty

de novo Generators Developing Code of Responsibilities

1Source: Boldt J, Living Machines, Metaphors, and Functional Explanations: Towards an Epistemological Foundation of Synthetic Biology, 2012 http://2012.igem.org/Team:Freiburg/HumanPractices/Philo

Artificial ligase enzyme

Mycoplasma laboratorium

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Current Opinion in Chemical Biology

December 2012 Volume 16Issues 5–6

Pages 461-622

Mechanisms • Aesthetics • Molecular imaging

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Synthetic AestheticsHow would you design nature?

• Connecting synthetic biology, social science, and art and design1

– Teams: Bioengineers and Synbio Designers• Molecular Design Aesthetics– When we make new molecules should they

be beautiful? Are naturally occurring molecules beautiful? What is an ugly protein?

– Is ‘form follows function’ relevant? Can function be beautiful?

– What aesthetic criteria to apply? Aesthetics of chirality1http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/H01912X/1 and

http://www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/media/Synthetic%20Aesthetics.pdf

Summary: Philosophical Issues in Natural Aesthetics

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• Proliferation of realism categories• Authenticity in representation persists

– Infoviz: representing the unrepresented– Synbio: creating the unrepresented

• Trend of one discipline using another’s medium– Artists -> biology, engineers -> biology, engineers -> art– Pervasive form and function, technology and aesthetics

• Multiple practitioner audiences and intentions• Philosophical issues in de novo creation

– Metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, axiology• Placeness, spatiality, dwelling, and homelessness

and nihilism in new contexts

Agenda and Upcoming Session2/12 - Introduction "What is digital art?" and what philosophers say about it.2/19 - The Design Aesthetics of Meaning-Making: Information Visualization.2/26 - Democratized Creativity: Performance, Music, Virtual Reality, Gaming.3/5 - Natural Aesthetics: BioArt, GenArt, SynBio, Biomimicry, CrowdArt.3/12 - Portable ArtTech: Identity, Fashion, Wearable Electronics, the Future. "Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism” (Stefan Sorgner, 2009)"Vitality of Digital Creation” (Timothy Binkley, 1997)Optional essay questions:

1) Explore the concept of dwelling homelessly in virtual spaces 2) What is post-nihilism?

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Digital Art and Philosophy Melanie Swan

University of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Galleryhttp://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCAhttp://www.slideshare.net/lablogga

Image: Emese Szorenyi

Thank you!