machine – Amy M. Youngs

Machine Garden

hypernatural — Sat, 24 Nov 2018 23:57:34 +0000

This ecosystem artwork features plants, worms, robot, and humans — all working together in a symbiotic ecosystem. Humans feed the worms food waste, the worms transform it into nutrients, which the robot pumps up to the plants. The plants absorb water, nutrients, and carbon dioxide and they exhale oxygen, which humans enjoy breathing.

Machine Garden was installed in the lobby of the art building at the University of Maine where it was cared for by students and staff for 3 years. Adjacent to this installation was a student-run coffee shop that generated a waste stream of coffee grounds. The grounds were placed under the hat at the top of the “worm hive” section. By the time this section filled up, the bottom container would be finished compost, which was used to fertilize other plants, both inside and outside the building. Each hive section would be moved to the shelf below, with the empty one becoming the top, ready for more food waste. Worms migrate to the new food source through the holes in the bottom of each section. Additional connected tube highways enabled the worms to travel from their hive to the soil of the planters, enriching and aerating it as they go.

Ken Rinaldo and I collaborated to create Machine Garden during our residency at the University of Maine’s Innovation Media Research Center (IMRC). We had the great help of the people and facilities there. Special thanks to Gene Felice, Sean Michael Taylor, Reed, Rachel Alexandrou, and Amy Pierce.

Museum for Insects

hypernatural — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 23:31:32 +0000

Can we know insects through electronic and artistic interfaces? Do they know us? Can they experience art? Can we develop new relationships with them?

I built a miniature museum space and used telepresent technologies to re-scale the situation and to provide methods for interaction that do not harm the crickets. Technological interfaces were integrated as organs of a system that attempted to change human viewpoints, disrupt a sense of self-certainty and approach a sense of empathy. An interactive webcam installed in the miniature museum offered remote viewers an intimate way to get to know the crickets. Humans entered the space only through internet-enabled devices that activated lights, a cricket puppet, and chirping sounds. After I built it, I took on the role of museum director and invited 4 separate exhibitions: 1) Trans-Species, by artist, Ken Rinaldo, 2) The Telepresent Animal Hall of Fame, curated by Doo-Sung Yoo, 3) Interspecies Housing, a landscape architecture student competition 4) Engineering Mini Utopia. Each exhibition taught us about the preferences and habits of House Crickets; for example, the Cricket Cloud piece created by the architecture students showed us the ways that crickets experience space through touch.

https://hypernatural.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Museum-for-Insects.mp4

Visitors to the hosting museum, are able to see the physical Museum for Insects on display, but they can not see everything visible on the webcam and they cannot control the functions available to the remote viewers. The altering of roles – human, insect, viewers, producers, curators, students – within the space of a miniature museum, was a way to explore value, empathy, power, and aesthetics.

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA first hosted the project as part of Beyond Human: Artist–Animal Collaborations, curated by Janey Winchell. This exhibition featured many artists who have been leaders in artmaking that rethinks ways humans interact with animals. Exhibiting artists: Julie Andreyev, Hilary Berseth, Catherine Chalmers, Emil Fiore, Mark Fischer, Ryan Hackett, Komar and Melamid, Steven Kutcher, Mary Jo McConnell, Jim Nollman, Julia Oldham, Christine Peter, Daniel Ranalli, Corinna Schnitt, William Wegman, Yukinori Yanagi and Amy Youngs.

A new iteration of this project is realized for the Urban Arts Space in Columbus, Ohio for the exhibition, Engineering Utopia, curated by Kris Paulsen.

Engineering Utopia is an exhibition highlighting the interactions between artists and engineers, particularly focusing on major collaborations happening at The Ohio State University. Premised on the idea of “utopia” as a place or context consciously built and constructed—engineered— for perfection, but also bound to “fail” or remain hypothetical, unrealized, and imaginary, this exhibition looks to the ways in which the context of art has allowed for makers, artists and engineers alike, to dream greatly and “fail” wildly, all the while making insightful discoveries about our technological environment and the human condition in the information age. At the center of Engineering Utopia are several major art restoration projects attempted by Ohio State and others. As such, the exhibition is a survey of important works of art and engineering, and also the outcome of an educational laboratory project that investigates the mutual influences of art and engineering, and fruitfulness of these struggles. The exhibition features research into the restoration of works by Chris Burden and Ken Goldberg, and artworks by Charles Csuri, Lutz Dammbeck, Isla Hansen, Ken Rinaldo, Lillian Schwartz, Stan VanDerBeek, and Amy Youngs.

Engineering Mini Utopia, is my version of the show, which features miniature works by many of the artists involved in the larger show – Ken Goldberg, Isla Hansen, Ken Rinaldo, Lillian Schwartz, and Stan VanDerBeek. Works by additional artists – TradeMark Gunderson, Tucker Marder and Jim Wilson – were invited into the exhibition to address the cricket audience and to further the utopian ideals of communication between technology, insects and humans.

https://hypernatural.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Museum-for-insects-view-from-network-webcam.mp4

Screen capture example of webcam view for remote visitors. Telepresent Animal Hall of Fame exhibition.

Special thanks to supporters: The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences, Janey Winchell, the tech team at the Peabody Essex Museum, Kris Paulsen, the Urban Arts Space, the College of Engineering and the Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences Tech Services and the contributing artists.

Machine for Living Interdependently

hypernatural — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 23:08:14 +0000

The plants, worms and bacteria living in this sculpture rely on each other and on human participation. They are fed entirely on waste generated by us: coffee grounds and veggie scraps from our kitchen, old newspapers and shredded junk mail from our offices, and carbon dioxide from our breath. They are watered by our rocking leisurely in the chair, which mechanically pushes water up to the top of the ecosystem and causes it to circulate through each part; delivering to the plant roots aerated water that has been fertilized by the worms living in the stream.

https://hypernatural.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Machine-for-Living-Interdependently.mp4

Partnering with living ecosystems benefits humans too, as the plants provide cleansed air and the worms provide local waste disposal services. Worm composting keeps waste out of the landfill, saving us from generating more greenhouse gas. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is produced by rotting food, even inside of traditional, outdoor compost bins. Worm composting does not produce methane and it does not create odors. Breathe easy, and invite them into your home.

Special thanks to Joan Leonard and Ken Rinaldo advice on this project. More photos on Flickr.

Hydroelectric Invert

hypernatural — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 18:54:13 +0000

A pseudo-waterfall sculpture made of rubber, light, motion and the booming sound of a waterfall. It is inspired by the way in which Niagara Falls is manipulated and constructed to serve humans as both an industrial and natural spectacle. The activation of this sculpture resides in a light switch mounted on the front of the piece, giving the viewer control of this artificial nature experience. Another important feature of this sculpture is its full extension, all the way into the outlet it plugs into. Pointing directly at its source of electricity, it refers back to the natural processes (such as waterfalls) that are used to produce it. This sculpture inverts an outdoor waterfall power source into an indoor, controllable version.

Alchemical Bloom

hypernatural — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 01:42:02 +0000

Alchemical Bloom is a system of artificial growth using information gathered from a natural source. A new copper sculpture “grows” every week; the size and texture of which is affected by the weather. Using information from an outdoor digital thermometer, a controller varies the amount of power supplied to the electroforming tank where the copper sculpture grows. The colder the temperature is, the higher the voltage is in the tank, which causes a faster, grainier growth. A warmer temperature lowers the voltage, resulting in a smaller object with a smoother texture. The completed sculpture is removed from the tank each Wednesday evening and hung on a wire in chronological order of production. The bloom quickly develops a patina, while the excess copper sulfate drips onto an aluminum canvas underneath, creating crystalline designs. Process, product and byproduct all become “the art” in this transmutation of weather, electricity and chemistry.

Rearming the Spineless Opuntia

hypernatural — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 23:08:22 +0000

The plant inside this device is both interactive with people and protected from them. Its metal armor closes up when approached and opens when people move away from it. Through cloning and micropropagation technologies, humankind has engineered creations such as the Spineless Opuntia, a cactus that lacks its original defense mechanism against those who eat them. This sculpture embodies my impulse to protect this vulnerable, human-engineered creation. But it also reveals the folly of protection in its heavy reliance on technology.

Mnemonic Devicive

hypernatural — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 00:22:28 +0000

The array of devices inside the tire entices viewer participation. As a hand reaches out to it, eerie sounds emanate from the piece. If any of the devices are touched, the sounds responsively change to a dramatic squeal. The experience is intentionally designed to be inscrutable. It is a device that stands to remind us of our individual lack of technological knowledge. As humanity impresses itself with its technological invention, individually we understand very little of it. Even old technology. We may think we understand older technologies, but even the Theremin, which was invented in 1927, is full of invisible forces that seem mysterious and are difficult to explain. I built this Theremin from instructions found in an old Popular Mechanics article. The process of making my own was frustrating, exhilarating and humbling. I hid the electronic instrument inside a tire with buttons, knobs and wires to present the viewer with a semi-familiar interface and an illusory sense of control.

Dis • M • Body

hypernatural — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 21:30:41 +0000

In this installation we explored the disembodied nature of information and messages as they dislocate and fracture one’s sense of self while simultaneously expanding one’s sense of connection. Our sense of self is no longer created through direct experiences but instead through mediated and simulated experience. Our senses continue to extend far beyond the physical limits of our bodies; virtual spaces and ideas are brought to us not by our fingers, ears or eyes but by video cameras, satellites, and digital wires. It is difficult to know where the individual body begins and our extended senses end. While these technologies amplify and clarify our knowledge, they also diminish and shrink our sense of self. The instantaneous quality of the information places us in a perpetual present. A constant flux. It places us at the center of an unknown self which is as fleeting as these electronic pulses. What is concrete are our connections. Indeed, electronic communications may help us realize that the individual self is a knot embedded in a relational network of others.