Synthetic Evolution 2 by Ken Rinaldo at the SP/N Gallery University of Dallas 2026 Curated by Dr Charissa Terranova

These AI-mediated transformations extend a practice that began with my early robotic generative artworks, where motors, sensors, machine logic, and diagrammatic systems were used to create interactive installations responsive to environmental and biological signals. In those earlier works, mechanical behavior functioned as a form of proto-intelligence—systems that sensed, reacted, and adapted in real time.

Over the past decades, I have increasingly merged machine schematics, electronic circuitry, and algorithmic diagrams with biological imagery, producing hybrid visual languages that oscillate between the engineered and the organic. These forms suggest speculative relationships between machines and living systems: sacs become organs or containers of agency, membranes imply permeability and exchange, motors echo muscular action, and vesicles operate as carriers of information and energy.

For Synthetic Evolution, I trained AI models on my hand-drawn works series, embedding constraints and rules that echo my longstanding compositional strategies.

These rules shape how forms may recombine, mutate, and propagate, allowing the AI to function less as a tool of automation and more as an evolutionary collaborator.

Because the source material is deliberately abstract and suggestive, the AI-generated outputs preserve this indeterminacy; however, the linguistic prompts introduced into the system often redirect the imagery toward unexpected figurative, ecological, or anatomical readings. Language here operates as a selective pressure, nudging visual evolution toward new territories.

Through iterative refinement, I curate and rework the most compelling AI-generated results—altering color, density, scale, and spatial relationships—reasserting the artist’s hand while honoring the agency of the system.

The resulting works occupy a liminal zone between authorship and emergence, intuition and computation.

Synthetic Evolution ultimately proposes AI not as a replacement for creative labor, but as a living, semi-autonomous system embedded within a broader continuum of biological, technological, and cultural evolution.

Exhibitions

934 GALLERY                                                                                                                   Columbus, Ohio, Nov 21- Dec 13, 2025
Showing Synthetic Evolution prints and videos, Organic Murmuration prints and videos & SIGNS, Invited by Gallery Staff.

SP/N GALLERY                                                                                                                               Dallas, Texas, Feb 7-Apr 25, 2026
Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art presents the World wide premiere of Symbiogenesis, and Anicca Antennae-Soil as Brain; robotic beings, as avatars to insects, soil and bacteria as well as The Evolution of Information = Life, Organic Murmurations, 1-SIGN, 3 Story Robots 3D Animation, a two person exhibition with Amy Youngs. Invited commissioned by Professor Dr Charissa Terranova. 

By morning, soldiers from both sides cautiously emerged from their trenches. They exchanged rations, photographs of loved ones, and even played impromptu games of football in the icy mud. The spontaneous truce—unofficial, uncommanded, and profoundly human—stood as a flickering beacon of peace in a world torn apart. Though the gunfire returned soon after, the Christmas Truce became legend: a testament to the power of song, shared spirit, and fleeting human connection to bridge even the deepest divides. Now, nearly a century later, science offers a new kind of song—written not in music, but in DNA.

In the near future, genetically engineered mosquito biovectors, carrying CRISPR-Cas9 systems and finely tuned RNA payloads, deliver precise genetic instructions to humans during a simple blood meal. The viral vector slips into the bloodstream, crosses into the brain, and edits molecular pathways that govern aggression. Slowly, a soldier’s violent reflexes begin to soften. The neural circuits, once primed for rage, now hum with balance and restraint. The evolution of compassion shifts from a slow social process to an immediate molecular transformation. Will these more peaceful genes be passed from the male to his and her offspring? That is the hope and purpose.

This idea makes me think of Dr. Robert Sapolsky and his research about aggression in baboon troops. In this research alpha males died and the troop transformes into a peaceful troop. Since then, a peaceful approach has become a cultural norm for these baboons. This is now a norm continuing for 20 years and now transforms other aberrant baboons that may wander into the troop.

This vision draws on real advances already reshaping the natural world. Scientists have created mosquitoes with gene drives—genetic systems that bias inheritance—to crash their own populations and curb diseases like malaria. CRISPR-based edits can render female mosquitoes sterile or skew sex ratios toward non-reproductive males. Released into the wild, these traits spread with startling speed, passing to nearly all offspring and driving populations toward collapse in just a few generations.

The same precision that reengineers nature’s most persistent killer could, in theory, be turned toward humanity’s most persistent instinct for violence—rewriting our biology to make war itself obsolete.

Here is a scientifically grounded outline of how a CRISPR-based behavioral modification gene drive could work.

CRISPR-Based Behavioral Modulation via Mosquito Biovectors

1. Vector Choice: Engineered Mosquitoes

• Genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are used as delivery systems.
• These mosquitoes are engineered to carry a viral payload in their saliva glands, which is released during a blood meal.

2. Viral Payload: AAV or Lentivirus

• The virus must be:
  • Tissue-targeted to affect the brain, ideally crossing the blood-brain barrier.
  • Engineered with a CRISPR-Cas system guided by synthetic single guide RNAs (sgRNAs) to target genes related to aggression regulation in humans.
• Candidates for the viral vector:
  • Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV9) – known to cross the blood-brain barrier.
  • Lentivirus – for more permanent DNA integration.
    
    

3. Target Genes

• Potential human gene targets include:
  • MAOA (monoamine oxidase A): Linked to aggression when mutated or under-expressed.
  • SLC6A4 (serotonin transporter gene): Involved in serotonin reuptake and emotional regulation.
  • BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor): Associated with neural plasticity and mood.

4. CRISPR Mechanism

• The virus introduces the Cas9 enzyme and sgRNA into the target cells in the amygdala or prefrontal cortex.
• Cas9 makes a precise cut in the DNA of target genes.
• The edit may:
  • Silence overactive genes related to violence.
  • Upregulate genes that support empathy and prosocial behavior (via promoter edits or exon activation).
• The edits are permanent if integrated using homology-directed repair (HDR), or transient if done using RNA base editing (e.g., via Cas13).

5. Safety Controls

• To prevent off-target effects or misuse:
  • A “kill switch” CRISPR failsafe.
  • Restricted gene drives (only affecting local populations, not global spread).
  • Tunable promoters to limit expression strength.

Research: CRISPR & Gene Drives in Mosquitoes

• Hammond et al. (2016) — A CRISPR-Cas9 gene drive system targeting female reproduction in Anopheles gambiae. Nature Biotechnology.
• Kyrou et al. (2018) — A CRISPR–Cas9 gene drive targeting doublesex causes complete population suppression in caged Anopheles gambiae. Nature Biotechnology.
• Gantz et al. (2015) — Highly efficient Cas9-mediated gene drive in Drosophila. PNAS.
• Esvelt et al. (2014) — RNA-guided gene drives for altering wild populations. eLife.
• Burt (2003) — Site-specific selfish genes as tools for control of natural populations. Proc. Royal Society B.
• Galizi et al. (2014) — Synthetic sex-ratio distortion for controlling the human malaria mosquito. Nature Communications.
• Simoni et al. (2020) — A male-biasing sex-distorter gene drive in the human malaria mosquito. Nature Communications.
• Carballar-Lejarazu & James (2017) — Population modification of anopheline mosquitoes for malaria control. PLOS Genetics.
• Hammond et al. (2017) — The creation and selection of mutations resistant to a gene drive in malaria mosquitoes. PLOS Genetics.
• Eckhoff et al. (2017) — Impact of mosquito gene drive on malaria elimination: modeling study. PLOS Computational Biology.
• https://www.media.mit.edu/articles/crispr-gene-drives-and-the-future-of-evolution/https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/a-new-crispr-driven-technology-for-gene-drive-in-plants

Artists, Works, and Curators (CRISPR / Bio-Art)

• Emilia Tikka — Eudaimonia (2018): speculative design/art exploring CRISPR’s impact on emotion and identity.
• Ars Electronica Project page and jury texts contextualizing CRISPR-related speculative art.
• Anna Dumitriu — Make Do and Mend (CRISPR gene-editing explored through textiles and storytelling).
• Jens Hauser — Curator/researcher; essays and exhibitions on bio-art and new biotechnologies
• William Myers — Biodesign (book/exhibitions; curatorial writing on design with living systems and gene editing).
• V&A Museum Biodesign Collection — Institutional context for design with biology (includes CRISPR era design debates).
• Ars Electronica Center — CRISPR exhibition materials and public engagement resources.
• Heather Dewey-Hagborg — While not strictly CRISPR, her DNA-centric works are key in the genetic-art discourse.
• SymbioticA (Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr) — Art-science lab/platform shaping the bio-art field; frequent CRISPR-adjacent discourse.
• Science Gallery — Curated exhibitions on biotech and society; multiple shows including CRISPR-focused programming and talks.
• https://innovativegenomics.org/news/visualizing-crispr-through-art/

Interlaced with this living matrix is a network of custom‑built autonomous robots, each equipped with a single antenna and embedded AI sensing systems.

These machines listen, watch, and respond in real time to subtle shifts in the ecosystem while playing the sounds of insects commonly found within those environments.

The twitch of an isopod, a change in soil moisture, the presence of microbial metabolic cues—can trigger robotic movements, gestures, sound responses and some caretaking actions such as beckoning watering in version two of this project.

Isopods are such fascinating being to me. Females brood their young in a pouch under their thorax called the marsupium. The marsupium was a critical innovation that enabled isopods to become one of the most successful groups of crustaceans to colonize land. By carrying their developing eggs and young in a protected, fluid-filled pouch, isopods can procreate and thrive. 

Additionally isopods have survived at least three of the Big Five mass extinctions:

In this work the technological community may nourish a biological community.

In this way, Anicca becomes a proto-self‑regulating hybrid system—a kind of miniatured robotic/organic feedback loop between biology and technology creating stability and resilience.

Additionally Anicca; Soil as Brain is a sound installation with a droning soundtrack, integrated with insect sounds and robotic feedback.

The soundtrack will be playing constantly and the movements of the isopods and springtails will trigger insect sounds from the robots themselves, which will contribute to the overall sonic experience.

At times the robots will signal only with light as fireflies and at other times with movement all while listening and contributing to this soundtrack, which will with their contributions never be exactly the same.

Here, intelligence is not centralized but emerges from the interplay of all participants: soil microbes, insect inhabitants, robotic avatars, environmental conditions, and the code that mediates their relationships.

This is a form of distributed cognition—an extended mind that crosses the boundaries of biology and machine.

The installation embodies the Buddhist concept of anicca, the doctrine of impermanence.

Like all living systems, the terrarium is in a constant state of transformation: the soil composition shifts, microbial populations rise and fall, insect behaviors change, microbial succession proceeds and the robots also adapt in realtime in response to the overall environmental cues.

There is no final form—only a continuous becoming. This impermanence is not a flaw but the defining condition of life, a dynamic equilibrium that keeps the system alive. A place where dead matter is imbued with life and where computer robot avatars become extensions to the living isopod and springtails.

The robots movement is a reminder that the springtails and isopods are also constantly becoming.

Anicca Antnnae: Soil as Brain also engages a deeper philosophical question: can technology itself be considered a form of life? We can easily say it has become an extension of life.

Astrophysicist Sara Imari Walker has argued that life should be understood not by its material composition, but by its informational and organizational complexity—a definition that would include self‑organizing, self‑regulating technological systems.

In this sense, the robots within Anicca are not merely tools or representations—they are active participants in a living network, co‑evolving with the biological world they inhabit.

By rendering the invisible visible—the micro-movements of insects, their sounds and signals, the hidden chemical rhythms of soil metabolism, the silent labors of microbes—Anicca reframes soil as a dynamic, thinking entity. It is an ecology where life and machine intertwine, merge, and adapt.

Ultimately, Anicca: Soil as Brain invites us to imagine technology not as separate from nature, but as a partner in the intelligence and evolution of the Earth itself.

Technical Description:

Anicca Antenna: Soil as Brain consists of a colony of custom laser-cut autonomous robotic agents integrated with a living terrarium through a real-time sensing and control system. Each robot is driven by an Arduino Mega microcontroller executing more than 6,500 lines of custom software written in the Arduino IDE. A motor drive board sits on top of the Arduino Mega. The robots operate autonomously, using front- and rear-facing active infrared sensors for collision avoidance and a digital compass to maintain orientation relative to the cardinal directions.

Each robot is equipped with a digital MP3 player containing a library of insect vocalizations that are triggered in response to events occurring within the living terrarium. Communication between the computational system and the robots occurs through infrared receivers that receive coded commands from an infrared beacon located beneath the terrarium.

A 4K webcam housed in a custom 3D-printed enclosure continuously images the terrarium and streams video to a Mac Mini running custom software developed in MAX/MSP/Jitter with OpenCV computer vision. The software tracks the movement and trajectories of isopods and springtails in real time, translating these biological behaviors into infrared command sequences transmitted by the beacon beneath the terrarium, which coordinates the robots’ movements and responses.

Each robot has four DC motors: two provide locomotion (forward, reverse, and differential steering), while two independently actuate the antennae. Rotary encoders on the antenna motors provide closed-loop position feedback, while accelerometers mounted at the tips of the antennae measure their orientation, enabling precise gesture control. Distributed LEDs communicate the robots’ internal behavioral, or “emotional,” states to viewers.

The robots operate in two behavioral modes. In Active Mode, they navigate autonomously in response to insect activity and environmental conditions. In Sleep Mode, locomotion is suspended to conserve battery power while the antennae continue slow oscillatory movements resembling REM sleep.

Additional ultrasonic sensors mounted at the tips of the antennae detect walls and nearby visitors for obstacle avoidance, while photoresistors enable the robots to orient toward the illuminated terrarium, which serves as a visual beacon. The robots are physically constrained within a circular pathway defined by a custom-shaped rug that also provides traction. Two wall-mounted displays complete the system: one visualizes the live OpenCV tracking of the insects, while the other presents a live view inside the terrarium.

The installation’s soundscape is composed using AI-assisted composition and mixed in Audacity from insect vocalizations, environmental recordings, and occasional telephone signaling tones.

Together, the biological organisms, computer vision, embedded controllers, robotics, sound synthesis, and audience interactions form a cybernetic feedback architecture in which living activity drives computational processes that continuously generate adaptive robotic behaviors. Rather than functioning as a linear input-output system, the installation establishes a closed feedback loop where biological activity, robotic responses, and human presence continually influence one another.

This work is a microcosm of nested microbes, robotics and Insects carrying nested symbionts — bacteria living inside other bacteria within specialized host cells.

Ken Rinaldo: Concept, production, design, programming and soundtrack

Special Thanks

Trademark Gunderson for his MAX MSP and Jitter coding on this project, as well as the Anicca robots coding.
Devin Powell for his Arduino coding for two years on this project as we developed and implementing new sensors and actuators.
David King for hot popping the isopod, springtail and soil terrarium now housing the soil brain.
Gayle Van Marter for cold-working the isopod, springtail and soil terrarium now housing the soil brain.
Jon Zimmerman as student intern for one of the first truly working prototypes on this Anicca (At the time Cyclops Robot)
Joseph Richmond as intern programming and moving the project closer having suggested accelerometers to control the neck.
Danner Seyfer Sprauge for working with me on 3D modeling these visualizations and for this early massaging of the illustrator cut files for the bodies of Anicca robots.
Joshua Gagliardi for working with me on laser cutting early versions of this robot and creating 3D models allowing the springs to sit flush, with the pull string neck elements.
Zach Sanderson for Laser Cutting, The Department of Art SADR Digital Fabrication Lab Specialist for assistance with laser cutting versions of the bodies of Anicca.
Kevin Wolf Manufacturing engineering specializing in design, machining & research 3D printing – for identifying and sharing interns with me.

Supply and software Chains

Thanks to OSEPP for working with me on securing parts for this project: There motors, wheel sets, encoders and motor control boards were central to the success of this project: Benjamin Tan, May Pater, Kai, Alex 

Sonauto.com AI Generation of soundtrack and The Museum of Biological Diversity remixed in Audacity.

Insect Recordings
The Museum of Biological Diversity The Ohio State University

Venues

Exhibitions

SP/N GALLERY                                                                                                                               Dallas, Texas, Feb 7-Apr, 2026
Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art presents the World wide premiere of Symbiogenesis, and Anicca Antennae-Soil as Brain; robotic beings, as avatars to insects, soil and bacteria as well as The Evolution of Information = Life, Organic Murmurations, SIGNS, The Farm Fountain, 3 Story Robots. Two person exhibition with Amy Youngs. Invited by Professor Dr Charissa Terranova.    

THE EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER VISION (ECCV)                    Malmö, Sweden, September 8 – 12th, 2026
Anicca Antenna: Soil as Brain video T Malmö Arena and Malmömässan invited by curator Luba Elliott & Ioannis Siglidis

CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS, UNIVERSITY OF ARTS                                                           LONDON, ENGLAND, JULY 5, 2027
Workshop Anicca Antenna: Soil as Brain and other artists for Modeling Organisms curated by Dr Heather Barnett, Regine Rapp and Christian De Lutz

ART LABORATORY BERLIN                                                                                       Berlin, Germany, September 2027, 2027
Workshop Anicca Antenna: Soil as Brain  and other artists for Modelling Organisms curated by Dr Heather Barnett, Regine Rapp, Christian De Lutz

References:

Research References for Anicca: Soil as Brain

1. Soil as an Emergent Intelligent System
   
2. Nadell, C. D., Drescher, K., & Foster, K. R. (2016). Spatial structure, cooperation, and competition in biofilms. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 14(9), 589–600. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2016.84
   
   Microbial Distributed Intelligence
   
3. Ben-Jacob, E., Shapiro, J. A., & Levine, H. (2004). Bacterial linguistic communication and social intelligence. Trends in Microbiology, 12(8), 366–372. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2004.06.006
   
   Robots Powered by Microbes (EcoBot-II and EcoBot-III)
   
4. Ieropoulos, I., Melhuish, C., & Greenman, J. (2005). EcoBot-II: An artificial agent with a natural metabolism. International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 2(4), 295–300. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5772/5777
5. EcoBot (Wikipedia overview) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoBot
   
   MFC-Based Environmental Sensing in Robotics
   
6. Santoro, C., et al. (2021). Microbial Fuel Cell-Based Biosensors for Early Detection of Environmental Pollution. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 8, 558953. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2021.558953/full
   
   Soil Microbial Fuel Cells for IoT and Agriculture
   
7. Bactery: Soil microbial fuel cells for powering IoT. Hello Future — Orange Innovation. https://hellofuture.orange.com/en/agtech-start-up-bactery-aims-to-use-soil-microbial-fuel-cells-to-power-iot/
8. Khaled, F., et al. (2023). Soil Microbial Fuel Cells for Sustainable Biosensing Applications. Biosensors, 13(1), 145. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6374/13/1/145
   
9. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-shapeshifting-roots-anatomy-metabolism-microbes.htmll
   
   Biodiversity and Stability in Soil Ecosystems
   
10. Wagg, C., et al. (2019). Fungal-bacterial diversity and microbiome complexity predict ecosystem functioning. eLife, 8, e62813. https://elifesciences.org/articles/62813
    
    Self-Organization in Microbial Soil Communities
    
11. Ratzke, C., & Gore, J. (2018). Modifying and reacting to the environmental pH can drive bacterial interactions. PLoS Biology, 16(3), e2004248. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2004248
    
    
    Microbial Intelligence and quorum sensing
    
12. Dodig-Crnkovic G (2026) De-anthropomorphizing the mind: life as a cognitive spectrum in a unified framework for biological minds. Front. Syst. Neurosci. 20:1730097. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2026.1730097
    https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/systems-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2026.1730097/
13. Reddy JSK, Pereira C. Understanding the emergence of microbial consciousness: From a perspective of the Subject-Object Model (SOM). J Integr Neurosci. 2017;16(s1):S27-S36. doi: 10.3233/JIN-170064. PMID: 29254105.
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29254105/
14. Microbial intelligence Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_intelligence
    
    Plant Signaling Behavior
    
15. Baluska F, Souza GM. Plant Signaling, Behavior and Communication. Plants (Basel). 2024 Apr 18;13(8):1132. doi: 10.3390/plants13081132. PMID: 38674541; PMCID: PMC11055140.
    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11055140/
16. Integrated information as a possible basis for plant consciousness
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006291X20319318
17. Trewavas A (2016) Intelligence, Cognition, and Language of Green Plants. Front. Psychol. 7:588. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00588
    https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00588/full
18. Gagliano M, Renton M, Depczynski M, Mancuso S. Experience teaches plants to learn faster and forget slower in environments where it matters. Oecologia. 2014 May;175(1):63-72. doi: 10.1007/s00442-013-2873-7. Epub 2014 Jan 5. PMID: 24390479.
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24390479/

Researchers (Insect Bioacoustics + AI/ML)

• Kiskin, I., Sinka, M., Cobb, A. D., Rafique, W., Wang, L., Zilli, D., … Roberts, S. J. (2021). HumBugDB: A Large‑scale Acoustic Mosquito Dataset. (20 hours, 36 species of mosquito, acoustic recordings from multiple countries) oxlel.web.ox.ac.uk+5arXiv+5datasets-benchmarks-proceedings.neurips.cc+5
• Mind Foundry/Oxford team. (2022). HumBug: Detecting Mosquito Signatures with Machine Learning. Smartphone-based acoustic detection of mosquito species for malaria surveillance mindfoundry.ai+2oxlel.web.ox.ac.uk+2
• Supratak, A., et al. (2024). MosquitoSong+: A noise-robust deep learning model for mosquito species & sex identification from wingbeat sounds. PLOS ONE Zenodo+6PLOS+6ResearchGate+6
• Faiß, M., & Stowell, D. (2023). Adaptive Representations of Sound for Automatic Insect Recognition. PLOS Comput Biol. (uses LEAF vs. mel‑spectrogram frontends, up to 66 Orthoptera/Cicadidae species) GitHub+14PLOS+14arXiv+14
• Faiß, M. et al. (2025). Open datasets of insect sounds for bioacoustic ML (expands to 66 species, calls for larger collections) arXiv+2PLOS+2
• He, H., et al. (2024). Enhancing Insect Sound Classification Using Dual‑Frequency and Spectral Fusion Module (DFSM) MDPI
• Additional mention: Use of ML (e.g. XGBoost, RF, KNN, MFCC features) for classifying insects like cicadas, beetles, termites, crickets from sound recordings (2025 preprint) arXiv

Artists Working with Insect Bioacoustics

• David Dunn – composer & environmental sound researcher; invented microphones to record bark beetle sounds inside trees; created CD The Sound of Light in Trees; collaborated with forest scientists on acoustic interventions musicalmrfox.co.uk+6Transart Institute for Creative Research+6University of California+6
• Robin Meier – installation Synchronicity (2015): alive fireflies & crickets are induced to flash/chirp in synchrony with pendulums, blending insect behavior with engineered systems vice.com+6robinmeier.net+6robinmeier.net+6
• Leah Barclay – ecoacoustic sound artist; projects like Biosphere Soundscapes (environmental listening in UNESCO biosphere reserves) and Rainforest Listening (AR layering rainforest soundscapes in urban space) soundcloud.com+5leahbarclay.com+5icareifyoulisten.com+5
• Jana Winderen – sound artist focusing on hard‑to‑access environments; works include hydrophone‑recorded underwater insects (Ultrafield), installations like The Art of Listening: Under Water and The River (Natural History Museum, London, 2024–25)

These chemicals, many untested or inadequately studied under current conditions, have known links to endocrine disruption and mutagenic effects.

Through visual and poetic renderings, I attempt to illuminate the hidden consequences of our industrial choices—impacts on human health and beyond, reaching the very health of our planet and its non-human inhabitants.

A poignant revelation lies in the estrogenic effects of plastics, derived from everyday items such clothing manufacture and use and birth control pills which now extend their influence beyond humanity to the ocean’s depths.

With birth control fish, subject to these synthetic estrogens, suffer feminization so severe that natural reproduction is disrupted.

This stark reality underscores the intricate and delicate web of life, now entangled with the byproducts of our industrial advancements. Visual art captures these silent invasions poignantly: sequences of images depict the ingestion and inhalation of microplastics through our most mundane activities, such as drying our clothes.

The discovery of a teratoma in the intestinal vista—a grotesque yet fascinating mutation—mirrors the hidden dangers lurking within our modern diets and environments, compounded by substances like glyphosate. This herbicide, prevalent in our monocultures, not only affects the plants it is meant to protect but slowly, steadily impairs our own health.

As we race towards ever greater efficiencies, our technologies—designed to scale the production of food, fabricate synthetic garments, and accelerate every aspect of growth—often disregard the subtle, toxic legacies they leave behind.

These innovations, rapid and relentless, flood our ecosystems with pollutants, challenging the very cells of our bodies to adapt or perish. Corn and its monocultural production are prime examples.

Amidst this, the enduring irony of plastics haunts us: materials designed for fleeting use persist for millennia, outliving their utility as we pivot from fossil fuels to solar, yet leaving the petroleum industry scrambling to repurpose its residues.

In the artistic tableau, a mutant infant emerges—not entirely human, corn, or machine, but an eerie hybrid, a symbol of our intertwined existence with the machinery that comforts yet confines us.

Another piece starkly portrays a pig birthing a human child—a surreal inversion reflecting our latest ventures into xenotransplantation, where engineered swine become potential bearers of new organs, replacing those ravaged by our own excesses. Recently, the boundary between fiction and reality blurs further as we contemplate using pigs as artificial wombs—a concept once fantastical, now frighteningly within reach.

In these reflections, art, and reality dance closely, mirroring our entanglements with the creations of our own ingenuity, urging us to ponder deeply the world we mold and its future inhabitants.

Exhibitions

CORFU CENTRAL PUBLIC HISTORICAL LIBRARY: CORFU TECH LAB                              Corfu, Greece, May 23-30, 2024
Mutagenic Futures with AI artworks by Ken Rinaldo and Adam Zaretsky Curated by Dalila Honorato

References

1. Potential Health Impact of Microplastics: A Review of Environmental Effects – Environmental Health Perspectives
2. Endocrine Toxicity of Micro‑ and Nanoplastics, and Advances in Biomonitoring – MDPI
3. Adverse health effects of exposure to plastic, microplastics and their additives – PMC
4. Exposure of the human placental primary cells to nanoplastics – ScienceDirect
5. Microplastics exposure: implications for human fertility, pregnancy and placental biology – Frontiers in Endocrinology
6. Effect of Endocrine‑Disrupting Chemicals on Placental Development and Function – Frontiers in Endocrinology
7. Marine Microplastics and Infant Health – arXiv
8. Triple exposure nexus: mapping microplastic‑particle health effects – ScienceDirect
9. Microplastics are inside us all. What does that mean for our health? – AAMC
10. Minderoo Foundation mega‑review: harms from common plastics – The Australian
11. Mandy Barker – Photographer addressing marine plastic pollution
12. Judith Selby Lang – Environmental artist, One Beach Plastic
13. Portia Munson – Sculptor and installation artist exploring consumer plastic waste
14. Pamela Longobardi – The Drifters Project, marine debris art
15. Dianna Cohen – Artist and curator, Plastic Pollution Coalition

One hundred trillion microbial organisms—bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses—co-inhabit the human gut, forming an ecosystem of deep-time intelligence. These ancient life forms have co-evolved with us as passengers and architects of physiology, emotion, and cognition.

Our microbiome speaks to the brain through electrochemical signals transmitted via the vagus nerve, forming a two-way information channel between the gut and cortex—between nutrients and thought. How have these ancient bacteria formed a central part of our body’s morphology, the vagus nerve? Co-evolution.

But it is not just biology that evolves—it is information itself. Amino acids on the Murchison meteorite which landed in Australia proved amino acids can form and survive in space, seeding self-replicating RNA that evolved into DNA and setting a precedent for information evolution in celestial space, now controlling our bodies’ evolution.

Over millennia, life on earth working collaboratively with sun light, water, fungi, bacteria and viruses, has expressed itself through increasingly complex encodings—genes to language, language to symbols, symbols to machines.

As mitochondria nest inside cells, tools now nest within our nervous systems, extending memory, vision, and agency.

Our earliest tools—flint blades and fire-hardened spears—were evolutionary prosthetics. They extended human hands and teeth with deadly forms and externalized thought into sharp intentions.

Was it the bacteria in the microbiome or the mitochondria within each of our cells that gave me the energy to see and feel?

Or is it something deeper in time, in the information space, a distant memory of amino acids having arrived on a meteorite and working to replicate themselves to find and build a protein?

Once we have the first robotic extension of the hand we can begin to imagine ways of having hands and fingers on fingers to allow us to reach into the sub-molecular.

My hands are driven by our intention to consume, eat, and feed the microbiome, which has now fashioned the loom, the printing press, the lens, and the algorithm, becoming not just a tool of survival but a partner in extending cognition.

Information replication machines.

Once bound to biology, information has become the spear and antennae of our species. It now flows through wires and code—no longer tied to a body but still very much alive.

Just as the neural crest in the embryo gives rise to both the brain and gut, we might imagine the neural crest of human culture—language, toolmaking, symbolic abstraction—splitting into biology and technology.

It is also interesting to see how our conceptions of human evolution is changing and the image above of the ancient Chinese culture was an exciting discovery for me. Recently this article also makes these early artifacts rewriting history that perhaps China not Africa is a possible site for the birth of civilization.

These strands are recombining and folding in upon themselves.  The human being is not simply using technology; we are becoming it.

In this descent into the technological, we are not devolving but mutating. We are becoming cyborg-holobionts—biological intelligence symbiotically fused with synthetic systems.

Smartphones and servers are the new symbionts woven into perception, memory, and attention however at times they feel more as parasites.

Data has become our new microbiome: feeding, shaping, and watching us.

We are not alone in our bodies or minds, as my smartphone pings me like a crying baby looking for commercial attention.

AI systems generate language, anticipate desire, and respond to us with eerie familiarity. Like mitochondria before them, these data-machine forms, evolve inside us—not by ingestion, but by immersion.

The stomach is not just a digestive vessel but a metaphor for our technological assimilation. As archaea found a niche in acidic lakes, information systems now find a niche in the neural substrate of human life. Once bound to soil and sky, our bodies are now interfaces between carbon and silicon, nature, and code.

Where does the body end and technology begin?

It doesn’t. Our species is not posthuman—it is transhuman, transiting through biological, microbial, and digital intelligence layers.

The Earth’s minerals form our bones, but rare-earth elements now form the circuits of our prosthetic minds. The same hands that once wielded spears now touch glass screens—each tap is a signal in the evolution of cognition.

We have descended into our tools, and they have arisen into us.

We are symbiosis, aliens, and obligate symbionts. We are not individuals but a multiplicity of information, replication, and evolution.

We are the medium, through which information becomes life again.

And now, life feeds on the signal. It remembers in clouds, replicates through fiber and silicon, and forgets through deletion and decay, just as bodies do.

Our dreams have left the cave wall and entered the data stream, painting with photons and harvesting from algorithms.

We do not merely live on Earth—we live through it.

And now, we are dreaming through its machines.

——–

Some of this writing was inspired by ideas I have thought about for a long time onthe nature of life and information that exists in the universe, through random and semi random interactions of matter, energy and information.

Recently i was inspired to find and read the book Life as no One Knows It by Astrophysicist Sarah Imari Walker and found she succinctly along with her collaborators has come with the idea of Assembly Theory that is to say that molecules in the universe posses information that forms in time and thus more complex chemical interactions may occur over time and allow the emergent properties of life to arise.

Special Thanks

Danner Seyfer Sprauge for working with me on 3D modeling these visualizations
Zach Sanderson for Laser Cutting, The Department of Art SADR Digital Fabrication Lab Specialist and for a collaboration on an Orca Hand in process that will be a critical part of this installation.
The University of Texas and Dr Charissa Terranova for their financial support of this installation and for the world wide premiere at the SP/N Gallery

Venues

Exhibitions

CHINA/HANGZHOU INTERNATIONAL BIENNALE OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY   Hangzhou, CHINA, Oct 18-Nov 18 2025
Yuhang Art Museum; World Wide Premiere of The Evolution of Information = Life Invited by curator Professors Duan Weibin and Xiaowen Chen (Cancelled because my passport was going to expire within six months. Still honored by the invitation and Chinese cultural inspiration.

THE WRONG BIENNALE 7                                                                                                    New York, NY, NOV 1-Mar 31, 2025 
Unrequited invites The Evolution of Information = Life curated by Chalet Comellas and Clint Sleeper         

SP/N GALLERY                                                                                                                               Dallas, Texas, Feb 7-Apr, 2026
Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art presents the World wide premiere of Symbiogenesis, and Anicca Antennae-Soil as Brain; robotic beings, as avatars to insects, soil and bacteria as well as The Evolution of Information = Life, Organic Murmuration, SIGNS, The Farm Fountain, 3 Story Robots. Two person exhibition with Amy Youngs. Invited by Professor Dr Charissa Terranova.     

References

• Nature: The human microbiome and its role in health and disease
• Scientific American: The Gut–Brain Connection
• Space.com: Murchison Meteorite and Extraterrestrial Amino Acids
• Cell: The Microbiome as an Ecosystem
• Science: Mitochondria and the Symbiotic Origin of Eukaryotic Cells
• Journal of the Royal Society Interface: Biological Information and Evolution
• PMC: Neural Crest Development and Evolution
• Cyborg Anthropology and the Merging of Technology with the Body
• Frontiers in Robotics and AI: Human–Technology Symbiosis
• HFSP: Proto-Cellular Path of Ribosomal Precursors
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: The Evolution of Human Tool Use
• Nature: Early Stone Tools and Human Evolution
• Scientific American: Oldest Known Stone Tools Discovered
• Antiquity Journal: Liangzhu Culture and Early State Formation in China
• National Geographic: Ancient Liangzhu City and Its Water System
• China Daily: Liangzhu Ancient City Listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site
• Archaeology Magazine: Hongshan Culture and Jade Artifacts
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Hongshan Culture Overview
• Quaternary International: The Archaeology of the Hongshan Culture
• UNESCO: Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City

In these works, exploded diagrams illustrate the functional organs of biological and machine systems coming together.

These works are diagrams of an emergent systems evolution, created when the microbes and vesicles of cells enter the technology, absorb it, and get enveloped by it. Intertwining elements enter each other and become part of the flow and process of consumer consumption and waste cycles.

Sacs refer to small, sac-like structures within cells or within larger cellular structures. These can include lysosomes, which contain digestive enzymes, or peroxisomes, involved in metabolic processes. Membranes are thin layers of lipid and protein that surround cells and cell organelles, serving as barriers to separate the cell’s interior from its environment. They play an important role in cellular communication and transport of substances across the membrane. Motors are proteins that convert chemical energy into mechanical work, allowing cells to carry out processes such as transport of vesicles and organelles within the cell. They are also machine entities that convert chemical energy for transport of humans and goods. Vesicles are small, membrane-bound structures that serve as a means of transport within; such as proteins and lipids, and can show processes such as exocytosis, where they release their contents to the outside of the cell.

These works endeavor to create a dynamic visual equilibrium to suggest symbiosis between machine and natural elements while fleeting, painful, and transformative will occur.

Parasitism of our machine entities by microbes and other species is one process we have observed. Microbes riding on industrially produced currencies with air flight as their distribution method, finding their way to human hosts, is another. Cockroaches nest inside warm electronics, eating and finding the ideal friendly homes to rear their young, all with easy access via electronic cooling vents. Indeed as cockroaches feast on human scraps, their microbiomes mirror our own. Our industrially produced foods are also suitable for immature cockroaches and reproduce quickly in these ideal environments.

Researchers have discovered that microbes are evolving enzymes of plastic-degrading proteins, enzyme “homologs.” They may behave like an enzyme but may not technically be an enzyme. Scientists have found over 30,000 enzyme homologs capable of degrading ten different types of plastic.

Let’s hope the oil industry does not get a hold of this news to further distract us from removing oil drilling and plastic production while continuing to spew carbon pollution into our atmosphere.

Parasitism and exploitation of our natural living world by industrial-strength machines and their chemical and gaseous outputs are the most explicit extinction pressures for all species, including ours.

Plastic waste infuses itself into every corner of our natural environment. Pharmaceuticals are flushed and enter our aquatic spaces mutating fish to be more feminine. Human damming of rivers wonderfully creates power for human civilization though sadly, it stops salmon runs. This results in the starvation of the forests of fish and insect proteins. Who would know the connection between our electricity use, overfishing of salmon, and the starving forests for nutrients?

Our engineering has advanced too quickly, and machines for felling trees for wood harvest kill other species while unraveling the webs of life.

Another web is emerging in the Sacs, Membranes, Motors, and Vesicles series.

Life is adaptable and will always find a niche somewhere in the machine. The places where dust collects on fans and wires promote particular kinds of crystallized growth. Electronics invite insects and spiders to create new selective pressures and forced symbiosis as machines and life painfully intertwine. Bacteria and molds find perfect refuge in the moist spots in our machines.

Given these selective pressures, accidental symbiotic interdependencies between living beings and machines may arise over time. They may become parasites at first to things like heat, though eventually, they may find a mutualistic relationship.

In a strange twist of fate, the cockroach babies find the perfect nesting spot, warm electronic nurseries, where the cooling vents are ideal doors. I discovered this in my old wall telephone in NY. When the phone rang, the young cockroaches would go running.

While living beings are occupying the machines, for the most part, they are overwhelmed and dominated by machine aftereffects.

However, living things find refuge in the machine, especially bacteria, and microorganisms seem to have complete comfort. They can quickly mutate and adapt, making them perfect inhabitants in machine worlds. It has been discovered that microbes with lateral gene transfer have been able to “breathe” rocks with extracellular electron transfer (EET) and other materials outside their cells.

The ideas of Lynn Margulis, where one thing invades another in her now well-accepted theory of endosymbiosis, seem almost violent. However, it tells us how things will move with life invading our machine worlds.  The optimal, genetically mutated being will be conceived and born in a future garbage dump. Gases spewing from rotting vegetables will fuel new forms of plastic-eating fungi, viruses, bacteria, and living systems. Yet that is happening here, as the machines insert themselves into our living systems. EET-capable microbes are already being looked at in aiding in toxic waste cleanup as an alternative energy source.

Endosymbiotic processes have already created a successful consortium of bacteria and human cells. The machine cells mixing with the bacterial cells produce a new network. We have two pounds of bacteria in our stomachs that help digest our food, yet I have at least a few thousand pounds of machine cells that are also my extended memory, remote sight, and ears, intertwining and connecting around the world.

There are many examples where living systems are forced into the organized systems of the human world. Agriculture is perhaps the most significant example where we machine control, form and genetically engineer, and create animals and plants of our desire. If the machine becomes the parasite and overwhelms life, our own lives will seem seriously curtailed. The ultimate question in the parasite-host and subject relationship is who the dominant being is.

Our new emerging species and our algorithmic intelligence give us a transcendent way of knowing and understanding.

There is little doubt that this form of consciousness is emergent. It is not consciousness as we imagine it.

Still, if our matter, energy, and information spaces push our minds and conceptual frameworks in particular directions, we need to fear this artificial intelligence.

What are the mutualistic relationships between the machines and existing living systems? Zoos, meat slaughtering, and agricultural systems are all a kind of mutualism, yet they exert selective pressures on all species.

The selection of certain monocultural crops, like corn or wheat, that can be easily harvested impacts the death of our soils and, in the end, the health of our microbiomes and microbial diversity in our guts.

So it will tend to favor animals and insects entering machines and cities. Bacteria and viruses that can laterally transfer their genes will find favor in this new world.

It will also promote the most adaptive urban species, such as rats, mice, cockroaches, cats, and flies, that can comfortably inhabit these machine spaces.

To find a more gentle symbiosis between machine, human, animal, insect, and microbial species, we need to study better the complex intertwining our techno-driven cultures promote.

I would rather be a symbiont with technological systems than feel I am their prey and host.

Exhibitions

SP/N GALLERY                                                                                                                               Dallas, Texas, Feb 7-Apr 25, 2026
Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art presents the World wide premiere of Symbiogenesis, and Anicca Antennae-Soil as Brain; robotic beings, as avatars to insects, soil and bacteria as well as The Evolution of Information = Life, Organic Murmurations, Sacs, Membranes, Motors and Vesicles, 1-SIGN, 3 Story Robots 3D Animation, a two person exhibition with Amy Youngs. Invited commissioned by Professor Dr Charissa Terranova. 

FORT HAYES GALLERY                                                                                    Columbus, Ohio, US – March 13-April 22 2023
Flow: visual interpretations on the theme of water invites Synthetic Evolution AI prints + one from the Machines, Motors and Vessicles Series and video of AI works morphing hand made drawings curated by Teresa Weidenbusch

ANTONIO PRATES GALLERY                                Lisbon Portugal, June 23-Sept 15, 2022
The Worldwide Premiere of collages and drawings inspired by the intertwining of human and machine interactions. Invited by Antonio Prates in collaboration with Centro Portuguese de Serigraphia and Joao Prates.

The Weight of Sunshine explores the hidden intelligences born from sunlight, tracing how solar energy gives rise to living systems, perception, and interconnected forms of awareness.

The suns energy is the giver of all life.

The iron in the stainless steel mobile hanging from the ceiling is from the center of exploding supernovae stars and carries oxygen in our blood.

Seen beside the planets, the immense scale of the sun becomes almost incomprehensible—a radiant body whose gravity holds the solar system in motion, whose energy shapes atmospheres, tides, weather, and life itself. The image transforms abstraction into feeling, revealing the sun not as distant backdrop, but as the overwhelming force from which our world continuously emerges.

The feather of a chicken, the branching limbs of trees, living air plants suspended in space, and even the plastics shaped from ancient fossil remains are all descendants of sunlight—material expressions of photons transformed through time.

Solar energy moves through chlorophyll, flesh, wood, atmosphere, oil, and industry, continually reappearing in new forms. What seems separate becomes part of a single radiant lineage, each object carrying within it the memory of the sun.

The roots spread into the soil and give sustenance to plants while cleansing water as they sip from rivers. Plant roots act as the brain of the plant, sensing, processing, and responding to the environment.

Plants communicate through roots, fungi, chemicals, and airborne signals in vast underground networks. Root apices function like neurons, forming distributed intelligence throughout the soil.

Plants share information, warn neighbors of danger, and cooperate through mycorrhizal fungal systems. The underground root system operates as a collective sensory and communication network—a living ecological mind. It is amazing to me that the energy of the sun has driven this emergent behavior.

The formal resemblance between branching roots and neural cells is not coincidence, but a recurring intelligence woven throughout nature. From forests to nervous systems, tree-like structures emerge wherever life must sense, communicate, adapt, and remember.

Branching becomes a universal language of connection—an architecture through which energy, information, and awareness move across living systems.

The sun combining with earth gasses, constructs trees guided by that sunlight. Trees and roots purify the air and pull carbon from the atmosphere.

The flickering lights illuminating an Xray of a human brain obtain their energy from the sun.

But does sunlight have weight? Though immaterial to our senses, sunlight exerts pressure, bends space, fuels atmospheres, shapes oceans, and gives rise to life itself. Its weight may not be held in the hand, but in the endless transformations it leaves behind across the earth and within our bodies.

Perhaps the most significant weight is its life-giving ability, allowing us to see the splendor of all art and complex living systems.

A repurposed glass jar, branch, cut hanger, resistor, and LED create a lamp below.

Exhibitions

LIGHTWELL GALLERY                                                                                                   OKLAHOMA, August 24-Sept 18, 2026
Exhibition on plant communication invites the the Weight of Sunshine Flickering Brain and Branch and two works from the SIGNs Series. Curated by Haley Prestifilippo

VISIBLE RECORDS GALLERY                                                                              Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug 1-Sept 13, 2021
The Tihua Tocha Exhibition invites The Weight of Sunshine mobiles and stabile sculptures along with the Worm Bassinet with Amy Youngs invited and curated by Federico Cuatlacuatl.

Together WE, with water, light, stone, minerals, air, and atmosphere, have come to form a holobiont. A holobiont is a complex and dynamic ecosystem composed of hologenomes. The intertwining of the host genome (us) and other associated microbial genomes determine this ecosystem’s future.

This installation consists of collection units (fans in Plexiglas boxes with filters) that collect human skin cells, bacteria, fungi, and viruses riding with you. As you enter the gallery, infrared sensors are hooked to microprocessors, switch the collection units on, and filter the air. The cell samples collected on these filters will be grown in sealed Petri dishes, as holobiome-snapshots, contained in a present earth-time. The miniature fans and filter systems I created collect humans and all other DNA in the room.

Therefore this work and technology can also be used to sequence and determine who is in the room with the human participants, including insects, microbes, fungi, and lichens. etc., using metagenomic sequencing.

In 2022 Elizabeth Claire, a molecular ecologist at the York University of Toronto, and Kristine Bohmann at the Globe Institute in Copenhagen, also created collection units to collect DNA from the air and determine the constituents of a zoo, for example. It was exciting to find this scientific research as confirmation of my art/science practice, which was produced in 2020. It was also nice to see these two researchers found the same method I used in the Scatter Surge installation, however I admired they were able to use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to look at the DNA sequences.

In my case, I grew the collected samples in Agar mostly to look at the microbial communities.

The stones in the installation reference different earth times, and the unique mineral elements that constitute them are also the substrate of life. For example, the iron in our blood originates in dying supernova stars.

Other essential amino acids of our bodies originate in the elements of these same rocks and stones. The stones here are between 4.7 billion to a few hundred million years old. Some have crystalline structures that have been part of giving rise to early life. Others are visibly fossils, where life had already developed on the earth and left its imprint on these ancient fossils.

This element of the installation was partially inspired by this video Life’s Rocky Start.

On the branches, supporting both the stones and holobiome-collection-units, lichen is growing a fungus, symbiotically joined with algae. The term ‘holobiont’ originated when Dr. Lynne Margulis observed and theorized about the complex symbiotic relationships in lichens in her theory of symbiogenesis.

Our collective intelligence and mineral substrates’ unique properties and material nature have now been exploited with technological advances, as silica has been turned into silicon.

Computers and algorithmic logic have given rise to artificial intelligence, and AI now plays a significant role in identifying, categorizing, and forming the world. AI has become a fundamental part of our evolution as a species.

We are “becoming with” with the algorithm, functioning as idea amplification devices, allowing life-like simulations and artificial life to bloom.

The Seed Series, in the background, looks at the logic of plants, their evolved wisdom, and agency, using wind, water, and fur to propagate their genes. We can understand that logic, and those growth strategies can then be applied to computer algorithms to help shape and create phantasmagorical seeds. Seeds that do not naturally exist, but through software, design strategies, and speculative fiction, can come into existence.

This Seed Series also speaks to the ease with which we can use CRISPR Cas9 genetic manipulation technologies to shape actual genetic variants. CRISPR Cas9, genetic scissors, allow more precise editing of genes and will enable the creation of designer seeds beyond our wildest imaginations, where plants and animal genes can be mixed.

Amazingly, this technology was adapted from a naturally occurring genome editing system that evolved in bacteria and was later discovered by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.

In the Seed Series, I use 3D software to propose these conflations of plant, animal, bacteria, and insects, all coming together into speculative fabrications. The Seed Series defines ways to understand, make, and rethink our relationship with artificially constructed, non-human others.

Additionally, symbiotic microorganisms occupy a wide range of skin niches, providing vital functions that the human genome had not yet evolved while symbiotically protecting against invasion by more pathogenic organisms.

The cell samples collected on these filters will be grown in sealed Petri dishes, as holobiome-snapshots, contained in a present earth-time.

The stones in this exhibition are between 4.7 billion to a few hundred million years old. Some have crystalline structures that have been part of giving rise to early life.

Others are visibly fossils, where life had already developed on the earth and left its imprint in these now ancient fossils.

On the branches, supporting both the stones and holobiome-collection-units, lichen is growing.  Lichen is a fungus symbiotically joined with algae. In this installation, I am particularly interested in asking questions about the skin cells, which can become any cell as I-Pluripotent Stem Cells, and their relationships with the microbes that tune them.

Our collective intelligence and mineral substrates’ unique properties and material nature have now been exploited with technological advances, as silica has been engineered into silicon.

With this silicon and robotic control technology, we can now begin to replicate some responsive and purposeful behaviors in artificial life systems.

These works automatically switch on when humans enter space and collect their skin cells.

What is the relationship between bacteria, fungi, and viruses that interact daily with those cells in tuning them and keeping them healthy?

A new study discovers that common skin bacteria can protect against cancer. Researchers say a strain of Staphylococcus Epidermidis highlights the importance of some microorganisms to the health of the human body.

Scientists have discovered that bacteria can also be used to prevent and treat various forms of cancer, and the study’s results are in the journal Science Advances. The scientists described the strain of Staphylococcus Epidermidis and how this bacteria secretes a chemical that eliminates harmful bacteria known to be responsible for infections.

Exhibitions:

GREAT PLAINS NATURE CENTER                                                                                        Wichita, Kansas, April 26, 2024
Earth Day showing; the Opera for Dying Insects and Scatter Surge video works. Winner of first prize in the adult video category. Invited by curator Tatiana Larsen. 

ART & SCIENCE CENTER ITMO                                                                                      St Petersburg, Russia, June 20-21
101. ALL IN ONE invites a presentation on my artworks curated by Aliya Sakhariyeva, Head of the Art & Science Center at ITMO University.

UGO CARA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART                                                                                 Muggia, Italy, Sept, 21 2020
ROBOTICS; ARTE E ROBOTICA invites the worldwide premiere of the Opera for Dying Insects and Scatter Surge curated by Maria Campetelli.

THE NEW ART FESTIVAL                                                                                Lisbon, Portugal, July 29-Sept 16, 2020
Pandemia invites The Opera for Dying Insects and Scatter Surge video works,  curated by ANTÓNIO CERVEIRA PINTO.

ARS ELECTRONICA 2020                                                                                                Linz, Austria, 9-13-Sept 2020
Acquired Immunity invites The Opera for Dying Insects and Scatter Surge video works curated by Marta De Menezes.

ISEA INTERNATIONAL                                                                                                         Montreal, Canada, OCT 2020
Present a paper Symbiotic Intertwining from Parasites for Symbionts as part of the Conference Why Sentience? Opera for Dying Insects and Scatter Surge video works Invited by Elizabeth Demaray.

MCDONOUGH MUSEUM OF ART                                                                               Youngstown, Ohio Jan 24, 2020
Scatter Surge exhibition presents the installation,  I Pluripotent,  a worldwide premiere, surrounding microbiome and holobiome portraits, origins of life, and the Seed Series, invited by director Claudia Berlinski.

Ken Rinaldo 2019; Concept, 3D modeling, rendering, fabrication, electronics, programming, and direction

TradeMark Gunderson; Plexiglass Fabrication and studio assistant

Pen Anders; studio assistant tying off stones with monofilament

This project aims to create artificial seed pods that will be distributed by both planes and waterfowl into the permafrost and frozen tundra to allow the future reseeding of forests and fields. CRISPR and  X-ray or chemical mutagenic methods will be used to mutate the seeds before they are placed in the pods.

While this work seems hopeful and can function as a kind of technical augmentation, sadly, it also acknowledges this may become necessary as a means of reseeding the earth given our burning of fossil fuels and the global warming that is the result. Tragically, according to the IPCC report, between 20 to 30% of plant and animal species face extinction by the end of the century.

As pollen and seeds are reproductive adaptations, they did not appear in plants until millions of years after seedless plants had already begun to live on land. These CRISPR seeds will be techno-augmented to sprout in the distant future, genetically modified to allow them to survive where global warming has harmed plants, unable to adapt quickly enough to our increasing C02 in the atmosphere.

While most plant species reproduce with seeds, many species of seedless plants have become extinct, although seeds can also resurrect plants long thought to be extinct.

The durability of seeds is known to depend critically on how they are stored and if you keep them in cold, dry conditions. In 2006 a story from Israel had scientists grow a date palm from a 2,000-year-old seed found during an archeological excavation on Mount Masada. The date palm seed was verified by radiocarbon dating. The seeds in these containers will be well dried and kept in airtight containment to last the longest possible time. In 2010 a Russian team found a seed cache of Silene stenophylla at 124 feet (38 meters) below the permafrost. Stenophylla is a flowering plant native to Siberia that an ice age squirrel had buried near the banks of the Kolyma River. Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the seeds were 32,000 years old.

Both examples demonstrate that, given the right conditions, seeds can remain viable for tens of thousands of years. The article cited that permafrost could be a “depository for an ancient gene pool,” a place where any number of now-extinct species could be found and resurrected.

A mallard duck floating on a lake eats transgenic seeds that emerged 10,000 years ago. Most glaciers have now melted, and The duck is seen eating the seeds in a melting lake.  Above that image is a series of smaller square images in a film sequence inspired by the notion of the “cinematic metaverse” and scientific research, showing an airplane distributing seeds on glaciers before they completely melt; in between smaller images of DNA being identified, visualized, and modified through CRISPR Cas9.

In the lower right-hand corner of this work are a beaker mixing miniature human figures, DNA, car parts, garbage cans, and bacteria together in a vortex action. This automatically activates when a passive infrared sensor sees a human nearby. It remains for some time and implies that humans are the next soup ingredient that CRISPR will modify. It is already beginning with restoring vision in formerly blind humans by altering their DNA. Formally and behaviorally, the water vortex in the beaker, mimics a tornado form, demonstrating the characteristics of the second law of thermodynamics, and the ultimate emergence of life with non-equilibrium thermodynamics – we find in all living systems. This tornado form also references global warming, taking the miniature humans up into its vortex spinning erratically.

An essential part of this work is sound. A sonic remix of polyphonic sounds from Portugal was used, including the polyphonic Choral Music of Duarte Lobo (Evora Portugal was where polyphonic music originated in Portugal), along with Fado remixes, including a rap poem about the tragedies of the loss of biological diversity in plants and their seeds.

Reseeding field and Forrest
planes fly to frozen lakes
10,000 years is a long time
The HONSU gene creates

We use evolution
to change evolution
CRISPR CRISPR bloom CRISPR
CRISPR boom shine

On the plexiglass shelf in the middle is an actual rapid-prototyped seed shell.  Inside are seeds that are currently not CRISPR modified though, may in the future be modified at the Arabidopsis Research center at The Ohio State University. The unmodified seeds may in future include soil and bacterial cultures used to enhance the long-term viability of the seeds though for demo purposes any CRISPR modified seed would be difficult to travel internationally unless under strict control.

To the left of that seed is a living variety of plants in a glass beaker, showing the splendor of our current natural world and some which may be lost.

Why a duck in the main scene? In 2018 a study in the Journal of Ecology reported that Mallards pick up seeds while feeding in the water and on land. In an endozoochory process,’ some of these seeds are not digested and survive gut passage intact, allowing them to sprout after passage. It is now realized that Mallards and other waterfowl are significant vectors for moving seeds from lakes to lakes.

In this project, some seeds will be designed for dispersal by water foul with nutritious special coatings that will be developed based on the nature of seeds and how they can naturally withstand the digestive systems of birds.

Other seeds will be placed in wood/plant seed pods specially designed to open at intervals of 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, and 10,000 years. Rapid prototyped seeds constructed of wood plant materials will degrade. They will allow these pods to dissolve once exposed to the atmosphere as global warming continues to melt glaciers and permafrost.

In some cases, airplanes will fly these seed pods to a height that will allow them to fall to the ground and melt into the glacial ice and permafrost.  As they fall, heat generated during their fall with the fins will enable them to melt into the snow and glaciers.

As the snow and glaciers melt, wood-based or PLA filament with bio based additives made from natural resources may function as the Cotyledon of the seeds to provide nutrients to the budding seeds. I am thinking of using filaments made from mussel shells, oysters, scallops, scraps of wheat, spent beer, and coffee grounds as additives.

In some plants, the Cotyledon contains high quantities of starch and can provide a source of food for the developing embryo before germination. At this stage, I am unsure if the PLA will break down in UV light to allow the seeds to regard this as starch.

Still, these will degrade and enable pods with CRISPR Cas9 & Cas12 seeds and pollen within to propagate new plants and start to repair the atmosphere with fresh oxygen being produced.

Problems with PLA or polylactic acid? PLA is a thermoplastic polyester with the chemical formula (C₃H₄O₂)_n. While it is oversold as a bio-based biodegradable biopolymer made from both the fermentation of renewable and natural plant materials, such as cassava, corn, and sugarcane, it is not so biodegradable. It will last in the environment for about five years before breaking apart. Some have algae that will break apart in about six months when exposed to direct UV light.

Given that no seed or plants bud in “pure isolation” though they are often surrounded by other plant seeds, complex soils, and bacterial cultures, I am also looking at many kinds of plant seeds in the artificial seed pods for both the CRISPR aspect of this project and the X-ray or chemical mutagenic methods used.

For one part of this project, I am focused on Arabidopsis, given the Arabidopsis plant has been entirely genetically sequenced and, therefore, can be manipulated using CRISPR.

Created by
Ken Rinaldo; Concept, research, 3D modeling, electronics, fabrication, Arduino programming, sound and song composition.

MUSEO EXTREMENO E IBEROAMERICANO DE ARTE CONTEMPORANIO Badajoz, Spain, May 18 -Oct 16 2022
Alter(action)  Spanish premiere of CRISPR Seed Resurrection curated and commissioned by Marta de Menezes

Exhibitions

EUGENIO DE ALMEIDA FOUNDATION                                                                  Évora, Portugal, May 18 -Dec 2021
Alter(action)  world-wide-premiere of CRISPR Seed Resurrection curated and commissioned by Marta de Menezes

Collections

Version 1 in the collection of Cultivamos Cultura, Lisbon Portugal.  1 of an edition of 3

Emergent Systems Team:

TradeMark Gunderson: Sound remixing and mashups, voice in song, Arduino programming.

Dr. Lam Yun Wah, Science advisor. CRISPR CAS9 and CAS12 bioprocesses and collaborative brainstorming.

Danner Seyfer Sprague; 3D modeling, lighting & rendering

Julian Robbins; rapid prototyping using a Crealty CR-6 SE and Anycubic Photon printers

Bruno Caragol: Frame Construction: Lisbon Portugal

Printing: McAlister Photo in Columbus Ohio

The Suckle Bots are a series of cuddly robots about the size of a human fetus.

As with most mammals, they have multiple nipples. These interactive works are chewelry for adults and feature sculpted soft nipples. Mothering behavior is accepted as a primary way to change your brain and is THE central physiological act of altering our brain structurally, functionally, and neurologically.

Breastfeeding mothers and babies are often called a dyad. Here two individuals become attuned to each other through affection and feeding and can be thought of as a kind of unit composed of two individuals.

Scientists have referred to this as ‘limbic regulation. It is a remarkable natural phenomenon whereby the mother and (now father) can neurologically and chemically sync with their artificial Suckle Bot.

The San Francisco University brain plasticity expert, Michael Merzenich, has researched breastfeeding. He describes this act as a form of changing one’s identity, for a child (and now robot) and mother/father, that can irreversibly alter both brains.

They are created with a soft latex pink rubber and feel like human skin.

Rapley and Murkett, in 2012, have found that breastfeeding actually forges new neurochemical pathways in the mother and (now father’s brain) that can create and reinforce maternal behavior. This is aided by chemical imprinting and allows a massive increase in oxytocin.

Hahn-Holbrook 2011 has found that these changes can result in a motivated, highly attentive, and aggressively protected brain that can compel the breastfeeding individual to alter their priorities in life. There is also a hormonal cascade making the mom, and now dad wants to respond to their Suckle Bot and help them more effectively be attentive to the Suckle Bot’s needs and the needs of others in the creation of nurturance and mutually supportive behaviors.

It is a well-proven fact now that when a mother nurses, her blood oxytocin levels remarkably increase, and her body makes more receptors that permanently increase their feelings of love and ability to feel loved by the other. To give you another example of oxytocin’s potency, male prairie voles were given a shot of oxytocin and were converted from sex-seeking bachelors into nurturing husbands and fathers.

In 2006, the researching male prairie voles, Ellison, discovered that roving-eyed males could be converted into nurturing husbands and fathers, given a shot of oxytocin.

In an age where we depend on cell phones and other electronic devices that often bring us bad news, these are designed as objects of affection and suckling and can only increase happiness and care.

Some models are designed with a yellow chain to add street credibility and make it easier to carry them around to work.

Some models can take your liquids and allow you to suckle and receive them as you nurse them. Some models vibrate in response to suckling and pressure at the artificial nipples.

They can accept all liquids, including breast milk and apple juice if you like. Other models have ripples around the nipples to allow bacterial seeding to develop a healthy microbiome. Some models will have inserts for pill-based microbes to make your microbiome happy.

As the microbiome and your overall health are also intertwined, these may be the first health-based prosthetic Suckle Bots on the planet.

The Suckle Bots are a fashion statement that says to the world, “you are not afraid to be affectionate,” to even an artificial robotic suckling device.

Suckling is at the heart of our survival as mammals. Indeed even the word for MAMA comes from the baby drawing air into its mouth while feeding its mother’s breast milk.

For breastfeeding moms and now dads, it’s an uplifting act. The longer and more often a baby or adult suckles, the more it can trigger the prolactin-oxytocin responses in the mother and father’s brains. This can increase and create elevated numbers of connections. Pretty soon, the mother/father forges enough receptors that she/he can feel natural breasts tingling and leaking at the sight, sound, or merely passing thought of a nursing baby.

With the Suckle Bots, you can be sure you will always have a soft companion to awaken your mothering instincts.

They can be used anywhere, and as times change, they are now entirely respectable to have in public.

Rather than dessert and sugar, you can use the Suckle Bots to allow you to displace that sugar craving and lose weight, as you will find your urges for candy and lollipops are just not as strong when you use these affection devices.

They also feel quite nice in other parts of the body, such as your ear. They are great for couples to have a moment suckling together.

They can bring you back to your childhood no matter how you suckled.

There are smaller Sucklebots available in various sizes in various colors and represent a whole family of hugable and suckable robots.

They can be used as meditative devices for thinking about other things.

And can be used quickly at home or school.

They are digitally modeled, rapid-prototyped, and coated with liquid latex rubber.

They can also be shared by couples and can create shared bonding experiences.