GMU:Media Art Strategies/Ksenia Tajsic/project overview

Brief

The following work will tail and investigate the behavior and essence of superorganisms, through different methodological principles. The focus is on research and interpretation of the concepts of metabolism, morphogenesis, superorganism, collective behavior, responsiveness to different stimuli, interactivity and participation in different forms and dimensions (externally: human-object, and internally: within the object itself), therefore connections between objects and in objects. By theoretically researching the mentioned concepts through the prisms of architecture, art, but also natural processes, I want to establish principles that will represent the basis of the practical or pragmatic. Through semester work, I want to unite the researched “theoretical” through “practical and material”, with the aim of developing tactile, kinetic sculpture (installation) that responds to stimuli. Through a series of experiments, I will establish the mentioned stimuluses and determine the ways of possible "answers".

Therefore, during the semester, I want to explore the ways in which superorganisms respond to stimuli, creating shapes and spaces, and to visualize their behavior.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Cut from "National Geographic: Flight of the Starlings" available at [1] . . . . . . . . . . . . Deer herd reacting to helicopter

I want to explore the concept through the material and the pragmatic. But also to examine the material as such and its relationship with the virtual; to dematerialize, virtualize and thus examine the relationship of cause and effect. The last phase of this work, whose plan is to move out of this semester and sink into the complexity of the master thesis, will be to examine the relationship of architecture-space-user-sculpture (installation) and their methodologies in research and answers to the same concepts- how do the research methodologies differ, what are the differences in the answers and what can unite them? How the same input causes (different) output depending on the medium of action (architecture or art)?

Keywords: superorganism, metabolism, morphogenesis, responsiveness, stimuli, tactility, relations (in between)

Experiments ( responses to established stimulis)

1. touch / pressure

Through series of experiments, I will investigate materiality of objects and shapes and how they are affected by touch / pressure.

e x p e r i m e n t 1

part01

part02

part03

02. humidity

03. movement / air

04. noise / sound

. . .

Literature, references, further readings and researches

Related thinkers/concepts/theorists/philosophers

Craig Reynolds> simple software for complex group behaviors

Karl Sims> Galapagos

Harvard's researches on soft-robotics

Stan Allen- Field Conditions

Archigram

Mark Auge- Non Places

Related artists, architects, projects

Physical sculptures of Ivana Bašić

Virtual sculptures of Emir Šehanović

XO Soft Ecologies Thesis - AA London

Lunden- Another generosity

Working mediums & working flow

-experiments on individual installation parts

-creation of material installation

-virtualization

-research methods