Concept and Lineage

In designing these interacting systems, I draw upon many lineages, bringing them into this single project – creating connections where I am able.

In concept, ACTinG for U relies on practices of emergent behavior, artificial biology, procedural art, chaotic systems, and psychological perspectives on organisms’ behaviors and needs. The organism-system and the genome animation develop a new schema over time as they sense and communicate, producing unpredictable color combinations and patterns that reflect these existences. These changes, mimicking living behaviors, showcase experiences such as the blank slate or inherent nature depending on the choice perspective. 

The starting point for the conceptual organism's design is based on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs1, defining a water organism that has basic needs and behaviors to respond to: sustenance, social interaction, and spontaneity. With internal measuring of the tank’s water level and physical motion and proximity detection, sustenance and social interaction are respectively reflected by direct, tangible experiences that people are also capable of registering. On the other hand, spontaneity is reflected in the ambient environment of chaotic unpredictability, taking in data from the surrounding environment via a floating input that people have no direct sense for. This choice is inspired by Ralf Baecker’s emergent systems art such as Interface I (2016)2, which drives an emergent interface with ambient radiation, giving the system natural unpredictability. Yet still, due to the deterministic nature of being a computer program ultimately, the procedures of this system are constrained. There is a set of what is possible and what is not for the water system to ever be – and those changes in turn shape the modulation of the genome animation even if it is already largely defined by the real human genome data.

For the genomic aspect of the project, I am deeply inspired by the works of Casey Reas in aesthetics and design, looking to his series such as Still Lifes (2016)3 and RGB (2020)4. These projects follow procedures as to how the final work will be produced but with a responsiveness to randomness allowing for variation between each work – making it nearly impossible in a human lifetime to reproduce any one of the works even with the same set of rules. My organism-system too forms its internal self from its responses to its senses in a random but structured way, maintaining a coherent visual aesthetic of emerging coloration, which – again – will always extend to the genome animation in visual effect as well, as the result of their communication.

Stepping back to the source of these emergent visuals, data is at the core of this piece. These visualizations explore the patterns and associations within the data – both real and artificially-created. The abstract color- and line-based approach for the data visualization screens lies upon the observations of sublime and anti-sublime data visualizations offered by Lisa Jevbratt and Lev Manovich. They considered data visualization as a method for unveiling traits and truths that are otherwise imperceptible in the pure data. In “The Prospect of the Sublime in Data Visualizations” (2004), Jevbratt reflects on the way that data visualizations can break us out of our expectations: “These are all evidences that reality does not show itself to us in an expected manner, through intention and expression, but it reveals itself to us indirectly in small fragmentary pieces.”5 I attempt to avoid a heavy pre-definition for these visualizations in my project (in spite of the procedural nature of their generation) by giving ranged behaviors and readings of the sensory input while (particularly with the genome animation visuals) avoiding a comprehensible association with the original data. In this I aim to free the data from my and others’ presumptions of the familiar genomic and sensory data.

I also draw inspiration from “Data Visualization as New Abstraction and Anti-Sublime” (2002) with Manovich’s statement: “The desire to take what normally falls outside of the scale of human senses and to make visible and manageable aligns data visualization art with modern science. Its subject matter, i.e. data, puts it within the paradigm of modern art.”6 This line frames data visualization as a way to translate data into our range of understanding, appearing opposed to Jevbratt’s argument for indirect revelations outside of our expected understanding; however, it is just as crucial in aligning a balanced approach to data visualization in giving something for the viewer to comprehend in patterns – even if that comprehension requires a free exploration and conclusions far beyond what the original data could have ever said on its own. Even if the difficult-to-comprehend scale of the human genome and unseen electronic-based senses of the organism-system are turned into another abstract form visually, the choice to visualize communicates a purpose to convey information, but the information I choose to convey is new, not something that is readily accessible or already known but should be discoverable by some mind or the next. This is a combined approach to data visualization drawing from these two seemingly-opposed views.