program
Transnatural
Technology was the means by which we separated ourselves from nature, and escaped its limitations. In the 21st century we move beyond the animosity between nature and technology. In a lot of areas we see new fruitful collaborations and new kinds of unity: in our dealings with the environment en with energy, but also in arts, architecture, fashion and games.
What will this transnatural world look like? Is this a next evolutionary step, or merely a changed perception of ourselves?
Multiplex Transnatural is the first of two exhibitions with symposia. Transnatural will show to young and old the most interesting attempts from art, design, and science to fuse technology with nature. A glimpse of a new and rich world with transnatural architecture, installations, games and more.
* Saturday 13 March Transnatural symposium: lectures, workshops and debate by Koert van Mensvoort (NL), Elio Caccavale (UK), Tobie Kerridge (UK), Rachel Armstrong (UK)
* Exhibition: Fri. 19 February till Fri. 19 March
Open: Wed., Thur., Fri. + Sun. 14.00h – 20.00h, Sat. 14.00h – 22.00h
* Workshops kids and youth: Mon. 1 March till Fri. 5 March
* Location: de Verdieping/TrouwAmstedam, Wibautstraat 127 Amsterdam
Admission exhibition: 7,50 Euro
Artists/ designers/ scientists:
MudTub
Thomas Gerhardt (US)
The MudTub is an experimental organic interface that is used to control a computer. By kneading, beating and stirring the mud with their hands, users can play games and engage with simulations and visual tools. Computers can now be controlled in a new, fully organic way. The MudTub explores connections between the organic and digital worlds.
tomgerhardt.com
Bit.fall
Julius Popp (DE)
New information floods through society at a faster rate than ever. Bit.fall translates abstract information flow into a waterfall of words. Specially designed software filters news from the internet, translating it into hundreds of subtle, synchronised Bit.fall water drops; each transient drop is a pixel, the smallest unit of information. Bit.fall distinguishes between two systems – nature with its own rules and laws – and cultural information processes.
sphericalrobots.org
Biojewellery
Tobie Kerridge (UK)
Bone tissue grown outside the body will soon be used in plastic surgery – the basic techniques have been tested and proven in laboratories. The promise of such technology has led to speculation about alternative applications. Kerridge’s Biojewellery explores the use of specially grown bone tissue as a symbol of love and commitment in marriage. Bone tissue of soon to be wed couples is cultivated, using hospital equipment, for matching wedding rings.
www.biojewellery.com
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand
Aaron Koblin/ Daniel Massey (US)
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand is a collection of 2088 voices recordings of people who sang the song ‘Daisy Bell’. ‘Daisy Bell’ was the first piece of music to be sung by a computer, the IBM 704, in 1962. Koblin and Massey asked participants to listen to a short sound clip from the song and to imitate it without knowledge of the ultimate goal.
www.aaronkoblin.com
Prickbot
Ralf Schreiber (DE)
Prickbot is a tiny, solar energy powered robot designed to run on the light of an overhead projector. This work was prepared for the Arts of the Overhead Festival. The robot, sitting on the projector platform, intermittently makes random rotating movements and pricks tiny holes in a thin aluminium sheet, transforming the projected image slowly from a starry sky into a supernova. The design is based on Mark Tilden’s BEAM technology.
www.ralfschreiber.com
Hairy Banjo / Meat Market
Joan Healy (IR)
In the performance Hairy Banjo Healy uses her own hair to form the strings of a musical instrument. As Healy’s hair-strings, connected to microphones and speakers, are plucked, the projected image of her face is strengthened. The projection of the artist’s face as her hair is strummed and plucked gives an insight into her emotional state. Viewable for one day only during the opening of MULTIPLEX TransNatural on February 19.
Meat Market is an interactive sound installation featuring meat that ‘dances’ in response to environmental stimuli. The term ‘meat market’ is an international English expression describing bars / nightclubs in which there is an overt sexual agenda often expressed by the explicit dress code of patrons. In this work, Healy highlights the prevailing cultural attitudes towards both meat consumption and human sexuality. She explores her doubts about the ethics of eating animals and the way sexuality is presented and appreciated.
www.joanhealy.biz
Analog Statistics
Sander Veenhof (NL)
The installation Analog Statistics establishes a link between the online presence of MULTIPLEX: TransNatural and the physical exhibition space. Seven plants in a greenhouse give exhibition visitors real-time insight into the cumulative website visitor statistics. A visit to the website, from anywhere in the world, triggers a growth-activating light over a plant that is correlated with the continent from which the site was viewed. The results will provide a foliage visualisation of international visitor numbers. Those who visit the website will see live webcam images of the triggered light and its effects. The European and North American plants will flourish, no doubt, but who will trigger the light over the Antarctica plant and help it grow?
www.sndrv.nl
Genetology
Maarten Vanden Eynde (BE)
Maarten Vanden Eynde developed Genetology (The Science of First Things) in opposition to the dominant Eschatology (The Science of Last Things). The main focus of Genetological research, walking the narrow path between art and science, is time and its consequences – the exploration of age old questions such as Where do we come from?, Where are we going?, How will we look back to the past in the future? and What will be left over?
www.genetology.net
Superuse
2012Architecten (NL)
Superuse.org, “Where recycling meets design,” is an online community of designers, architects and others who are interested in inventive and aesthetically interesting ways of recycling. The site draws together projects and resources that allow different elements to be located for re-use. Urban scale initiatives and buildings, but also small projects, furniture, interiors are gathered together.
www.2012architecten.nl
Analemma
Jelle Feringa (NL)
www.ezct.net
Mybio / Utility Pets
Elio Caccavale (UK)
The MyBio project explores our moral, social, cultural and personal responses to the alien in human biology and potential trans-human creatures, and provokes debate about genetically modified human/animal hybrids. MyBio examines how children learn about the categories of animals and humans, and whether these categories could be otherwise constructed in light of technological developments.
Utility Pets consists of products and services highlighting the ethical implications of xenotransplantation – the transplantation of animal organs into humans. In the near future, it’s possible that pigs will be engineered with the DNA of newborn babies, giving each person their own personal living organ bank. These creatures – known as ‘knock-out pigs’ in science, are unique lifeforms. Utility Pets looks at what domestic objects and arrangements might be necessary were a knock-out pig to live in its human’s house.
Protocells & living architecture
Rachel Armstrong (UK)
Protocells, such as the Traube Cell, are self-assembling chemical systems with the properties of simple life forms. Dr. Rachel Armstrong developed, with a team of scientists, different types of protocells designed for various applications in urban development, namely ‘living architecture’. Armstrong aims to eventually implement an architecture that makes an autonomous contribution towards healing the environment.
www.rachelarmstrong.me
Peristaltic Skin
Lucy McRae (NL/AU) / Mike Pelletier (NL)
This first co-operative project between ‘body architect’ Lucy McRae and artist Mike Pelletier is a machine that redefines the surface of the body. Peristalsis – radial contraction of muscles – is used by earthworms to move and by humans for digestion. The skin in Peristaltic Skin is coated with everyday materials to experiment with motion, mass, liquid and colour. Lucy McRae explores the worlds of fashion, technology and the body. With training as a classical ballet dancer and as an architect she is fascinated by spatial expression of the human body.
www.lucymcrae.net
Gardening
Lyndsey Housden (NL/ UK) / Yoko Seyama (NL/ JP)
Gardening is a sensitive organic structure made of stretched rubber bands – a reactive garden where small changes bring about new forms. Dealing with these structures triggers similar psychological effects in users as real gardening. In her research Housden creates scenes of sensory structures from pure materials.
www.sentientarchitecture.net
New Work
Daniela Bershan (DE/NL)
The work of Daniela Bershen is based on process and growth. Loss of feedback control and organic links lead to inevitable conditions that are neither designed nor arbitrary. Bershan is interested in the basic and the mechanical functions of life – those that exist mainly in a state of blind automatism – a starting point for finding new forms. Life is a ‘form’ for Bershan.
More information: info(at)beyondexpression.nl
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Technology was the means by which we separated ourselves from nature, and escaped its limitations. In the 21st century we move beyond the animosity between nature and technology. In a lot of areas we see new fruitful collaborations and new kinds of unity: in our dealings with the environment en with energy, but also in arts, architecture, fashion and games.
What will this transnatural world look like? Is this a next evolutionary step, or merely a changed perception of ourselves?
Multiplex Transnatural is the first of two exhibitions with symposia. Transnatural will show to young and old the most interesting attempts from art, design, and science to fuse technology with nature. A glimpse of a new and rich world with transnatural architecture, installations, games and more.
* Saturday 13 March Transnatural symposium: lectures, workshops and debate by Koert van Mensvoort (NL), Elio Caccavale (UK), Tobie Kerridge (UK), Rachel Armstrong (UK)
* Exhibition: Fri. 19 February till Fri. 19 March
Open: Wed., Thur., Fri. + Sun. 14.00h – 20.00h, Sat. 14.00h – 22.00h
* Workshops kids and youth: Mon. 1 March till Fri. 5 March
* Location: de Verdieping/TrouwAmstedam, Wibautstraat 127 Amsterdam
Admission exhibition: 7,50 Euro
Artists/ designers/ scientists:
MudTub
Thomas Gerhardt (US)
The MudTub is an experimental organic interface that is used to control a computer. By kneading, beating and stirring the mud with their hands, users can play games and engage with simulations and visual tools. Computers can now be controlled in a new, fully organic way. The MudTub explores connections between the organic and digital worlds.
tomgerhardt.com
Bit.fall
Julius Popp (DE)
New information floods through society at a faster rate than ever. Bit.fall translates abstract information flow into a waterfall of words. Specially designed software filters news from the internet, translating it into hundreds of subtle, synchronised Bit.fall water drops; each transient drop is a pixel, the smallest unit of information. Bit.fall distinguishes between two systems – nature with its own rules and laws – and cultural information processes.
sphericalrobots.org
Biojewellery
Tobie Kerridge (UK)
Bone tissue grown outside the body will soon be used in plastic surgery – the basic techniques have been tested and proven in laboratories. The promise of such technology has led to speculation about alternative applications. Kerridge’s Biojewellery explores the use of specially grown bone tissue as a symbol of love and commitment in marriage. Bone tissue of soon to be wed couples is cultivated, using hospital equipment, for matching wedding rings.
www.biojewellery.com
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand
Aaron Koblin/ Daniel Massey (US)
Bicycle Built for Two Thousand is a collection of 2088 voices recordings of people who sang the song ‘Daisy Bell’. ‘Daisy Bell’ was the first piece of music to be sung by a computer, the IBM 704, in 1962. Koblin and Massey asked participants to listen to a short sound clip from the song and to imitate it without knowledge of the ultimate goal.
www.aaronkoblin.com
Prickbot
Ralf Schreiber (DE)
Prickbot is a tiny, solar energy powered robot designed to run on the light of an overhead projector. This work was prepared for the Arts of the Overhead Festival. The robot, sitting on the projector platform, intermittently makes random rotating movements and pricks tiny holes in a thin aluminium sheet, transforming the projected image slowly from a starry sky into a supernova. The design is based on Mark Tilden’s BEAM technology.
www.ralfschreiber.com
Hairy Banjo / Meat Market
Joan Healy (IR)
In the performance Hairy Banjo Healy uses her own hair to form the strings of a musical instrument. As Healy’s hair-strings, connected to microphones and speakers, are plucked, the projected image of her face is strengthened. The projection of the artist’s face as her hair is strummed and plucked gives an insight into her emotional state. Viewable for one day only during the opening of MULTIPLEX TransNatural on February 19.
Meat Market is an interactive sound installation featuring meat that ‘dances’ in response to environmental stimuli. The term ‘meat market’ is an international English expression describing bars / nightclubs in which there is an overt sexual agenda often expressed by the explicit dress code of patrons. In this work, Healy highlights the prevailing cultural attitudes towards both meat consumption and human sexuality. She explores her doubts about the ethics of eating animals and the way sexuality is presented and appreciated.
www.joanhealy.biz
Analog Statistics
Sander Veenhof (NL)
The installation Analog Statistics establishes a link between the online presence of MULTIPLEX: TransNatural and the physical exhibition space. Seven plants in a greenhouse give exhibition visitors real-time insight into the cumulative website visitor statistics. A visit to the website, from anywhere in the world, triggers a growth-activating light over a plant that is correlated with the continent from which the site was viewed. The results will provide a foliage visualisation of international visitor numbers. Those who visit the website will see live webcam images of the triggered light and its effects. The European and North American plants will flourish, no doubt, but who will trigger the light over the Antarctica plant and help it grow?
www.sndrv.nl
Genetology
Maarten Vanden Eynde (BE)
Maarten Vanden Eynde developed Genetology (The Science of First Things) in opposition to the dominant Eschatology (The Science of Last Things). The main focus of Genetological research, walking the narrow path between art and science, is time and its consequences – the exploration of age old questions such as Where do we come from?, Where are we going?, How will we look back to the past in the future? and What will be left over?
www.genetology.net
Superuse
2012Architecten (NL)
Superuse.org, “Where recycling meets design,” is an online community of designers, architects and others who are interested in inventive and aesthetically interesting ways of recycling. The site draws together projects and resources that allow different elements to be located for re-use. Urban scale initiatives and buildings, but also small projects, furniture, interiors are gathered together.
www.2012architecten.nl
Analemma
Jelle Feringa (NL)
www.ezct.net
Mybio / Utility Pets
Elio Caccavale (UK)
The MyBio project explores our moral, social, cultural and personal responses to the alien in human biology and potential trans-human creatures, and provokes debate about genetically modified human/animal hybrids. MyBio examines how children learn about the categories of animals and humans, and whether these categories could be otherwise constructed in light of technological developments.
Utility Pets consists of products and services highlighting the ethical implications of xenotransplantation – the transplantation of animal organs into humans. In the near future, it’s possible that pigs will be engineered with the DNA of newborn babies, giving each person their own personal living organ bank. These creatures – known as ‘knock-out pigs’ in science, are unique lifeforms. Utility Pets looks at what domestic objects and arrangements might be necessary were a knock-out pig to live in its human’s house.
Protocells & living architecture
Rachel Armstrong (UK)
Protocells, such as the Traube Cell, are self-assembling chemical systems with the properties of simple life forms. Dr. Rachel Armstrong developed, with a team of scientists, different types of protocells designed for various applications in urban development, namely ‘living architecture’. Armstrong aims to eventually implement an architecture that makes an autonomous contribution towards healing the environment.
www.rachelarmstrong.me
Peristaltic Skin
Lucy McRae (NL/AU) / Mike Pelletier (NL)
This first co-operative project between ‘body architect’ Lucy McRae and artist Mike Pelletier is a machine that redefines the surface of the body. Peristalsis – radial contraction of muscles – is used by earthworms to move and by humans for digestion. The skin in Peristaltic Skin is coated with everyday materials to experiment with motion, mass, liquid and colour. Lucy McRae explores the worlds of fashion, technology and the body. With training as a classical ballet dancer and as an architect she is fascinated by spatial expression of the human body.
www.lucymcrae.net
Gardening
Lyndsey Housden (NL/ UK) / Yoko Seyama (NL/ JP)
Gardening is a sensitive organic structure made of stretched rubber bands – a reactive garden where small changes bring about new forms. Dealing with these structures triggers similar psychological effects in users as real gardening. In her research Housden creates scenes of sensory structures from pure materials.
www.sentientarchitecture.net
New Work
Daniela Bershan (DE/NL)
The work of Daniela Bershen is based on process and growth. Loss of feedback control and organic links lead to inevitable conditions that are neither designed nor arbitrary. Bershan is interested in the basic and the mechanical functions of life – those that exist mainly in a state of blind automatism – a starting point for finding new forms. Life is a ‘form’ for Bershan.
More information: info(at)beyondexpression.nl
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