Projects
* Artistic and philosophical project of theory fiction: Fusarium Oxysporum (2020)
by Santiago Arcila, Juan Cortes and Diego Moreno
Results:
Fusarium oxysporum SP4 and
Fusarium oxysporum erythroxylum are part of the genus of filamentous fungi. The first is the cause of Tropical Race 4 (TR4), a disease that affects crops of genetically modified banana known as Cavendish; the second is also known as “agent green”, a mutant strain promoted during the 2000s by the Government of the USA as a biological weapon in the ‘War against drugs’ in Latin America. Both species are deeply embedded in Colombia´s recent ecological and political history: despite the wide presence of native species of
Fusarium in local soil and vegetation, the introduction of these two “alien fungus” in the country has triggered the devastation of banana-cloned crops, soil degradation and biodiversity loss. Spreading through the private and public budget, thriving among monoculture breeding grounds, the xeno-fungus has infected Colombia’s economic, politic and agricultural systems.
This installation aims to unfold a series of audiovisual objects –such as interactive maps, soundtracks, data visualizations– to constitute a space where a multidisciplinary approach employs AI to present and represent the morphology of the complex network where
Fusarium oxysporum SP4 end
Fusarium oxysporum erythroxylum interact with other agents of the Colombian´s inner conflict, like politicians, companies, human bodies, money, markets, cartels, guerrillas, farmers, desires, etc. In detail, we employ a web scraping algorithm to extract data from academic, governmental, economic and scientific papers and articles; then we analyze and process the information in order to establish four different sets of relationships:
Fusarium-banana Cavendish,
Fusarium-native soil,
Fusarium-war against drugs and
Fusarium-public policies. Finally, we render the data in order to produce an organic visualization of the whole behavior of the fungus in its encounter with the geopolitical conditions of Colombia.
* Philosophical ethology project in dialogue with the computational art- (Since 2017)
Results:
Surrounding Worlds is a multimedia project that involves a VR video game with AI and various prostheses (co-created by electronic artist Juan Cortés):
https://www.juancortes.net/surrounding-worlds
Surrounding worlds is a project that consists of a video game and two prostheses that act as retroactive controllers for the videogame, where the Golden Warbler bird Umwelt is staged. The videogame is based on a biological study and a real migration history from 2014. The Golden Warblers (birds) faced adverse conditions due to the global warming that generated storms on the coasts of Florida, which were their main destination. This caused the birds to alter their migratory routes, being forced to explore an alternative route through Mexico and Central America until arriving in Colombia.
The video game recovers the Amerindian technological gesture of adopting the point of view of the animal. The prosthesis is the control of the main character of the game, who must overcome obstacles by detecting magnetic fields and seeds with infrared vision. The game problematizes Umwelt’s relations with the technological and political activities that pollute the environment: walls, electric fences, communication antennas and pollution.
Understanding the implications of migration has to do with understanding that the bird, in its journey, is a seed disperser, that is, a forest weaver. The bird recovers and feeds ecological niches. This Umwelt serves as a contrast to think about the complexity of migrations and massive displacements in the human sphere, whose motives involve climatic, industrial, political and technical causes of the contemporary form, but also are displacements in which cultural and communal fabrics are produced.
-Videogame (Co-created by electronic artist Juan Cortés):
https://www.juancortes.net/the-migrants
-Laboratory for the creation of prostheses, at the crossroads of art, philosophy and technology:
Surrounding Worlds (With the Mayor of Bogotá)- 2018
*Project on individuation and astrophysics in dialogue with computational art (2018)
Results:
What is the role of dark matter, an invisible form which accounts for approximately 70% of all matter in the universe? In the 1970’s, astronomer Vera Rubin discovered that the objects at the edges of galaxies moved faster than expected, and predicted the existence of unseen dark matter to explain the discrepancy.
Supralunar invites us to experience discoveries made by Rubin on the relationship between dark matter and the rotational movement of galaxies. It proposes a poetic approach to dark matter, visualising this strange and unknown entity that scientists believe supports entire galaxies, stopping them from being torn apart by the extreme speed at which they rotate – but which we cannot see or detect yet.
– Mechanical sculpture:
Supralunar (co-created by electronic artist Juan Cortés)
https://www.juancortes.net/supralunar
