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. 

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

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
   
   Biodiversity and Stability in Soil Ecosystems
   
9. 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
   
10. 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
    
11. 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/
12. 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/
13. Microbial intelligence Wikipedia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_intelligence
    
    Plant Signaling Behavior
    
14. 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/
15. Integrated information as a possible basis for plant consciousness
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006291X20319318
16. 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
17. 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)

At its core, the installation engages with Lynn Margulis’ pioneering concept of symbiogenesis, which challenges traditional notions of individuality and selfhood in evolutionary theory. Symbiogenesis posits that mitochondria—energy-producing organelles in most animal, plant, and fungal cells—originated when an ancestral eukaryotic cell formed a mutually beneficial relationship when it engulfed an aerobic bacterium, likely an alphaproteobacterium, over 1.5 billion years ago.

This event did not lead to digestion but to coexistence, fundamentally altering the trajectory of life. Today, mitochondria remain distinct entities within our cells, possessing their own DNA, reproducing independently, and driving essential metabolic processes, such as ATP synthesis through aerobic respiration.

Visualization and Interaction

This art-science installation seeks to render these ancient symbiotic beings visible through large-scale fine art glass sculptures, robotics, and interactive elements. Sensor-based interactions, miniature cameras, and projected imagery will create dynamic, immersive environments that reflect the life and agency of mitochondria.

Among unicellular eukaryotes, the number of mitochondria can vary from 1 to ~100,000, and this depends on the specific organism. Grape vines in the growing season have 25–50% more mitochondria than in the autumn, and much depends on the life stage of the organism. The HeLa human cell line can have ~300 or ~800 mitochondria at different times, depending on whether it’s going to divide, and it depends on the life stage of the cell.

Mitochondria hold a unique genetic inheritance, passed primarily from mother to child, with rare instances of paternal contribution. These organelles, once independent bacteria, now reside within us as vital components of our cellular function and consciousness. Their presence challenges the singular notion of the self, as nearly half of our bodily cells are bacterial, actively participating in our biological and cognitive processes.

Machine Consciousness and Symbiosis

The installation further explores the parallels between biological and technological symbiosis, particularly in the era of artificial intelligence. As our digital networks intertwine with human cognition, we may be witnessing the emergence of a new form of machine consciousness—a crude but evolving intelligence shaped by vast datasets, neural networks, and human desires.

The concept of the supraorganism emerges, wherein humans, mitochondria, and artificial systems form a layered, interconnected entity.

Lynn Margulis’ intellectual journey—her challenge to Darwinian “survival of the fittest” in favor of cooperative evolution—provides a guiding framework for this work. Her writings, along with those of her son Dorion Sagan, particularly Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan , inspire sonic elements in the installation as the work and writings of American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator Carl Sagan. Their explorations of the second law of thermodynamics and its role in life’s emergence underscore the significance of energy flow, organization, and information in evolution.

Multi-Sensory Experience

The installation features: Beakers containing vortexes of water, amplified through miniature cameras, and projected onto walls, creating a visual dialogue between microscopic and macroscopic worlds. Vortexes of water are dissipative structures as referenced by Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine.

The turbulence at the bottom of the beakers allows a persistent spiral to form. Self-organization in dissipative systems. This is closely related to Prigogine’s work, which showed that non-equilibrium conditions (such as energy flow through a system) can lead to the emergence of stable, structured patterns.

Dissipative structures share key properties with living systems—they sustain themselves by consuming energy, maintain a structured form, and respond to external conditions.

While these self-organizing structures do not represent life in a biological sense, they exhibit fundamental characteristics of living systems, such as organization, adaptation, and persistence—leading to interesting discussions about the origins of life and complex systems. In some of these dissipative structure’s images or protoribosomes ribonucleic acid images are behind them with laser light referencing sunlight (energy input) on the Protoribosomes and RNA images. Protoribosomes (precursor-like structures to ribosomes) existed in some primitive form in space is speculative and intriguing.

Ribosomes themselves are highly complex biological nanomachines responsible for protein synthesis, and their evolutionary precursors—protoribosomes—likely arose through simpler, chemically driven self-assembly processes on early Earth. The concept that their initial building blocks or even primitive RNA-based scaffolds originated from space via amino acids has attracted interest and research.

Telescopes and microscopes referencing both Margulis’s microbiological research and Carl Sagan’s astronomical inquiries, emphasizing the interconnectedness of knowledge across scales are also present. As you look into some of the telescopes you will see animations of kinesins or motor proteins walking on the cytoskeletons of the cell.

A computer-generated voice will be reading AI generative texts, composites of Lynn Margulis, Carl Sagan and Dorion Sagan will all be heard from within the mitochondrial sculptures, and some dishes will have red cherry shrimp, mosses, and ferns presented; all life coexisting with Mitochondria.

Alpha Fold and the Next Stage of Evolution

The installation extends into the present and future with references to Alpha Fold, an AI system developed by DeepMind that predicts protein structures with unprecedented accuracy. Alpha Fold’s breakthroughs in protein folding have profound implications for biology, medicine, and synthetic life, offering insights into the intricate molecular machines that sustain life.

By accelerating our understanding of biological processes, AI-driven discoveries like Alpha Fold contribute to a new evolutionary phase—one where human intelligence and artificial intelligence co-evolve, shaping the next frontier of life itself.

A central visual element of this installation will be a projection of a bacterial cell motoring through the cytoplasm, dynamically constructing and deconstructing the actin cytoskeleton as it moves. It may also include cuts to an animation of the mitochondria showing ATP synthesis.

This visualization underscores the perpetual transformation within cells, mirroring the broader themes of emergence, adaptation, and symbiosis.

Symbiogenesis 2025-26 is a meditation on the intertwined narratives of biology, technology, and cognition and the emergence of life itself.

Through art and science, it invites audiences to reconsider the nature of individuality, agency, and evolution in an era where humans, microbes, and machines form an unprecedented symbiotic network.

As we stand at the threshold of new forms of intelligence, the installation prompts reflection on what it means to be alive in a world where biology and technology continue to merge.

Production and Special Thanks

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

Gayle Van Marter below working on the cold-working of the mitochondrial forms

Danner Seyfer Sprauge for working with me on 3D modeling these visualizations and for production on the printing and massaging of the proteins walking on the mitochondria, the sound circuit holders and many 3D printed parts.

Trademark Gunderson for his robotics and debugging expertise on the sound circuits including the Raspberry Pi

Dorion Sagan for reviewing my text for the soundtrack of one of the mitochondrial works, and finding a critical mistake about the second law of thermodynamics. We entered into a long and fruitful discussion online, and I am thrilled he offered his critical feedback and has also agreed to show a drawing work and poem near the acknowledgements section where we will celebrate him, his mom Lynn Margulis and Dad Carl Sagan.

Joshua Gagliardi for laser cutting, The College of Nursing, Laboratory Research Operations Senior Analyst
Zack Sanderson for laser cutting, The Department of Art The Ohio State University
The Ohio State University Emeritus Academy for the Faculty grant to help pay for the cold-working and necessary equipment
Zach Sanderson for Laser Cutting, The Department of Art SADR Digital Fabrication Lab Specialist

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 Murmuration, SIGNS, The Farm Fountain, 3 Story Robots. Two person exhibition with Amy Youngs. Invited by Professor Dr Charissa Terranova.           

References

Lynn Sagan, On the origin of mitosing cells, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume 14, Issue 3, 1967, Pages 225-IN6,
https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-5193(67)90079-3

Kozo‑Polyansky, B. (2010 English Translation of 1924 Original). Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution (Ed. Mikhailov, V. & translated by Sym, S.). Harvard University Press. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674054095

Mereschkowski, K. (1910). The theory of two plasms as the basis of symbiogenesis, a new principle of biology. Biologisches Centralblatt, 30, 278–288. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Mereschkowski

Aanen, D. K., & Eggleton, P. (2017). Symbiogenesis: Beyond the endosymbiosis theory? Current Opinion in Microbiology, 43, 67–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mib.2017.01.007

Martin, W. F., et al. (2015). Endosymbiotic theories for eukaryote origin. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1678), 20140330. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0330

MIT List Visual Arts Center (2022). Symbionts: Contemporary Artists and the Biosphere. Exhibition catalogue. https://listart.mit.edu/exhibitions/symbionts-contemporary-artists-biosphere

Chen, X., et al. (2025). Symbiosis of Agents: Co-Evolution of Embodied Agents via Environmental Feedback. arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.02606. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02606

Schubert, T., et al. (2014). ChromaPhy: A Living Wearable Connecting Humans and Their Environment. arXiv preprint arXiv:1403.6823. https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6823

Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984). Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature. Bantam Books. https://archive.org/details/orderoutofchaosm00prig

Neyrinck, M. C., et al. (2020). As Above As Below: Cosmic–Cellular Structural Parallels. arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.05942. https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.05942

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.

Here is the lower tract of our digestive system being chocked off by plastic waste.

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

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

The original Mother Russia Meltdown by Charles Wince is the painting that inspired my work below. Charles’s extraordinary oil painting, created with a keen and critical eye, dissects the relentless noise of consumerism, the grip of oligarchs, and the exploitative nature of capitalism. As a self-taught artist, his work is both raw and deeply intentional, offering a sharp critique of the forces shaping modern society.

His masterwork has been in progress for many years, evolving as part of a broader collection of oil paintings on wood and canvas. This body of work interrogates the illusions of consumerist culture and exposes the hollow promises of economic systems built on exploitation and environmental destruction—an unflinching look at the cost of unchecked greed and power.

In response to Wince’s Mother Russia Meltdown, my work is a hand-drawn piece on paper, framed with laser-cut stainless steel. It engages in dialogue with his painting, echoing themes of collapse, conflict, and systemic failure, while also reflecting on the broader consequences of war, industry, and environmental ruin.

I am also deeply sorrowful for the more-than-human world—the trees, the animals, the pets left behind in the chaos, and the intricate, living systems that sustain us all. War does not just devastate human lives; it scars the land itself, poisoning rivers, stripping forests, and leaving behind a toxic legacy that lingers for generations.

Bombs do not distinguish between combatants and the fragile ecosystems they obliterate. Forests become battlefields, homes for countless species turned to ashes. Streams that once nurtured life run thick with pollution from fuel spills, chemical runoff, and unexploded ordnance. The very air becomes tainted with the smoke of destruction, affecting not just those who breathe it now but those who will inherit this wounded earth.

The animals caught in war—whether the pets abandoned in the rush to flee, the livestock left to starve, or the wild creatures whose habitats are reduced to rubble—suffer silently, their pain often overlooked. Their losses do not make headlines, yet they, too, are casualties of human violence.

And war’s reach does not end when the fighting stops. The land bears the scars for generations. Soil poisoned by depleted uranium, dioxins, and heavy metals remains toxic long after the last shots are fired. Fields once fertile are left barren, rivers lifeless. Communities are forced to reckon not only with their own grief but with the slow, insidious decay of the land they call home.

War is not just a human tragedy—it is an assault on life itself. And as long as we continue down this path of destruction, we risk severing the very connections that sustain us, forgetting that we, too, are part of this fragile web of existence

Mother Russia Meltdown 2 by Ken Rinaldo is a reflection on the universal suffering caused by war, extending its empathy not only to human victims but also to the unseen, often overlooked beings—those yet to be recognized, discovered, or acknowledged in the vast web of life. It mourns for all who endure the consequences of violence, whether visible or hidden, present or yet to come.

For me, this piece resonates deeply on a personal level. My father, along with my grandmother and aunt, once walked across France, fleeing the Nazi occupation of Paris. Their journey was one of survival, fear, and resilience—an experience that echoes through history and continues to be felt in the countless displaced lives of today’s conflicts.

His growth was stunted due to severe malnutrition, a direct consequence of wartime scarcity. Deprived of essential nourishment during his formative years, his body bore the marks of a childhood spent in hunger. Yet, even greater than the physical toll was the emotional weight he carried—growing up without his father, who was killed by a mortar blast when he was just seven years old. The war didn’t just take his father’s life; it shaped his entire existence, leaving behind an absence that could never be filled.

If not for the kindness of a Swiss family who took him in each summer and nourished him with proper meals, he may not have survived. Their generosity was a lifeline, offering him not only sustenance but a brief refuge from the hunger and hardship that defined his early years.

War and its wounds do not simply vanish when the last shots are fired. The pain, the trauma, and the loss ripple through generations, shaping lives long after the battles have ended. I feel an overwhelming sense of sorrow for the refugees forced to flee the senseless violence in Ukraine and Russia, leaving behind their homes, families, and histories in search of safety.

Charles Wince’s painting, though created long before the war in Ukraine, eerily foreshadows the present crisis. Originally reflecting on the collapse of the Soviet Union, its relevance today is striking—especially as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant remains under constant threat due to the Russian siege. What was once a prophetic vision of instability has now become an unsettling reality, with the specter of nuclear catastrophe looming over an already war-torn region.

Soil Babies by Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs was a crowd-sourced edible sculpture intervention created with a group of artists who wanted to learn about compost and soil regeneration. Together, we designed a “worm bassinet,” an art-science cradle for red wriggler worms, where miniature edible sculptures were placed as both nourishment and art. Over time, these sculptures were deconstructed by the worms, turning ephemeral art into rich compost. This process simultaneously fed the worms and enriched the soil, while also nourishing a community’s awareness of vermicomposting as a regenerative practice—one that addresses climate change and promotes healthier ecosystems.

The work embodied an interspecies collaboration, bringing together human artists, worms, and the vast bacterial cultures that inhabit the worms’ microbiomes. These gut microbes play a vital role in decomposing organic matter, breaking down complex plant fibers, and creating nutrient-rich castings that enhance soil fertility. Recent studies have shown that earthworm digestion stimulates beneficial microbial activity, increasing the bioavailability of nitrogen and phosphorus, which are critical for plant growth.

Our process began with locally sourced organic waste—waste paper, watermelon rinds, and vegetables grown on-site. We hand-crafted these materials into small sculptures, each a unique form designed to invite both human contemplation and worm consumption. These sculptures were placed in the bassinet for the worms to consume over days and weeks, allowing their slow transformation to be both a visible and an ecological act.

This work addressed one of the major environmental challenges of our time: methane emissions from landfills. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, has a global warming potential more than 25 times that of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. According to recent research, organic waste in landfills is responsible for at least 17% of global methane emissions. By diverting organic matter into small-scale vermicomposting systems, we can significantly reduce these emissions while creating a closed-loop system of nutrient cycling.

Red wriggler worms (Eisenia fetida) are particularly suited for this kind of work. They thrive in contained environments, rapidly process organic waste, and produce “worm tea,” a nutrient-rich liquid fertilizer. In our bassinet design, the baby’s arm and foot collected this worm tea, symbolically linking human care to ecological care. This tea, rich in beneficial microorganisms, can improve plant immunity and enhance soil microbiome diversity.

The project also used technology to bridge art, science, and public engagement. A Raspberry Pi and miniature camera system were installed to livestream the worms’ interaction with the sculptures. Gallery visitors could watch in real time as worms nibbled, tunneled, and slowly integrated the sculptures into the living soil. This act of witnessing made the normally hidden processes of decomposition visible, reframing decay as an act of creation.

Once the exhibition concluded, the enriched soil and worms were returned to the farm on the gallery site, where they continued their work in a larger ecological context. This closed-loop approach mirrors regenerative agricultural practices, which emphasize building soil health rather than depleting it. Recent research into soil microbiomes underscores that a single teaspoon of healthy soil can contain up to one billion microorganisms, representing thousands of species—fungi, bacteria, archaea, and protozoa—all interacting in a complex web of nutrient exchange. Worms are keystone species in this network, enhancing microbial diversity and facilitating carbon sequestration.

Ultimately, Soil Babies was both an artwork and an ecological intervention. It invited participants to see themselves as part of a living, interdependent system, where waste is not an end but a beginning. The project encouraged a shift in perspective—from seeing soil as inert matter to recognizing it as a vibrant, intelligent community. What we eat and discard can become food for others—worms, microbes, and plants—continuing a cycle that sustains life across species and generations.

Exhibitions

VISIBLE RECORDS                             Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug 1-Sept 13
The Tihua Tocha Exhibition invites The Weight of Sunshine mobiles, stabile sculptures along with the Soil Babies by Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs, and version two of Angel of Car of Death (Carro Angel de Muerte) invited and curated by Federico Cuatlacuatl.

References:

• Dume, B., et al. (2021). Carbon Dioxide and Methane Emissions during the Composting and Vermicomposting of Sewage Sludge… Atmosphere, 12(11), 1380.
• Hwang, H. Y., et al. (2022). Addition of Earthworm Castings Reduces Gas Emissions and Improves Compost Quality. Applied Biological Chemistry, 65, 27.
• Impact of Vermicomposting on Greenhouse Gas Emission: A Short Review (2025).
• Nature Communications (2023). Earthworms Do Not Significantly Contribute to GHG Emissions in Agricultural Settings.
• High‑Temperature and Earthworm Combined Composting Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Waste Management / SSRN (2023).
• Emission of Greenhouse Gases during Composting and Vermicomposting under Varying Conditions. ScienceDirect (2022).
• Henderson, Tamara. (2023). An Artist’s Ode to Worms. Hyperallergic.
• Ecological Art That’s Literally Alive. Hyperallergic (2025).
• Sekules, Veronica. (2024). Starting to See Waste as Art and Heritage. ClimateCultures.
• UNCG and Guilford College Collaborative “Compost” Exhibition (2024).
• GWENBA. Dreams of Vermi‑Computing & Other Monsters. Art Gene.
• McAllister, Lorrie (with Amy Youngs). Worm Culture Art.
• Aloi, Giovanni. Nature in Visual Culture; Antennae and Ecological Art Critiques.
• Fowkes, Maja & Reuben. Art and Climate Change. Thames & Hudson (2022).
• Brookner, Jackie. Biosculptures: Living Soil/Water Ecosystems as Public Art.

Each student in the class at the University of North Carolina Wilmington was tasked with going out to the streets around the campus and collecting whatever refuse they could find and bringing it back to the forest green on the campus.

They were asked as they collected the trash to imagine a story of why the human discarded trash onto the street and what circumstances would induce anyone to litter the gorgeous natural surroundings of Wilmington. They were given various lengths of colored yarn and asked to tie the trash to the yarn, as Ken Rinaldo would then use a cordless drill to wrap and encase the trash into the Trash Cocoon.

While this collaborative piece was fun to make, it was simultaneously sad and curative. These students were not the litter bugs; however, as with all plastic and waste refuse, they were forced to take responsibility for someone else’s careless behavior.

In doing so, they became better citizens preventing the refuse from being washed into rivers and out to the ocean only to return to our bodies as microplastics in fish and other seafood.

One of the students found a discarded coconut, which we placed on the end of the threaded rod. It somehow seemed to put a human head on all this trash and identified it as a mainly anthropogenic problem.

Below are students delivering their stories to Ken Rinaldo and another student holding up the bobbin as it was getting so heavy.

Special thanks to Professor Gene Felice and the Department of Art Chair Professor Aaron Wilcox for making this visit, event, exhibition, and prosocial remediating collaborative performance possible.

Exhibitions

The University of North Carolina Wilmington Wilmington, North Carolina, 2021
Trash Cocoon is a crowd-sourced intervention by Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs invited by Professor Gene Felice and the Department of Art.

Synthetic Evolution

The Synthetic Evolution series merges human creativity with artificial intelligence, using advanced algorithms to transform and evolve my hand-drawn visual forms, patterns, and imagery into entirely new experimental compositions. These AI-driven processes generate unexpected variations, reinterpreting and expanding upon my original drawings in ways that push the boundaries of traditional artistic expression. Through this fusion of human intuition and machine intelligence, the series explores the intersection of organic and synthetic creativity, resulting in both static works and dynamic moving image pieces that continually shift, morph, and reimagine themselves in real time.

These hand-drawn works are closely connected to my robotic generative artworks. In my interactive installations, I integrate motors, sensors, circuit designs, and custom programming to build large-scale robotic systems. As I work with machine diagrams and technical schematics, I have discovered an unexpected aesthetic—one that merges mechanical precision with organic flow. My original drawings serve as training sets for AI-generated works, blending machine diagrams with biological forms to suggest movement, function, and interconnectedness.

For the Synthetic Evolution exhibition, I defined a set of rules and parameters based on my hand-drawn works, using them as training data sets for artificial intelligence engines. These datasets are merged with large language models, enabling AI to generate new visual compositions derived from my original drawings. Because my works are abstract and open to interpretation, the AI-generated variations maintain this quality—yielding experimental and suggestive forms. The algorithm produces numerous iterations, and I curate the most compelling results to refine and evolve further.

This process is repeated hundreds of times until I find a piece that best captures the balance between my hand-drawn art and AI’s generative interpretation. At this stage, I enhance the digital work by adding color and adjusting form before finalizing the piece. Once completed, I incorporate these works into a video program, showcasing the transformation from original drawing to AI-generated evolution. AI-generated sound further amplifies the experience, allowing viewers to witness the unfolding of this digital evolution in real time.

Synthetic evolution using AI in visual art is an exciting and rapidly growing field, and I am exploring its potential to create new forms of expression that may challenge traditional notions of creativity and authorship. By combining the power of artificial intelligence with my vision and intuition, synthetic evolution has the potential to lead to new forms of art that blur the boundaries between human and machine-generated creativity.

Artificial intelligence tools powered by machine learning are revolutionizing both the arts and sciences, reshaping the way we create, discover, and innovate. One of the most groundbreaking advancements is AlphaFold, which has demonstrated an unprecedented ability to predict highly accurate 3D models of protein structures.


This breakthrough has the potential to transform the field of biology, accelerating drug discovery, medical research, and our understanding of life at a molecular level. While DNA has long served as the slow but effective mechanism of evolution for all species, AI has now emerged as a powerful accelerant—reshaping not only how we evolve biologically but also how we interact with and adapt to our rapidly changing world.

In the realm of art, AI tools have become widely accessible, allowing for seamless remixing, reinterpretation, and transformation of cultural expressions. With this democratization of creative technology, culture itself feels like it is igniting—metaphorically and literally—as the boundaries between human and machine-made art blur, and the pace of artistic evolution accelerates at an unprecedented rate.

So how do artists support the coming AI, neural network, and big-data art boom? We learn the tools and the technology and engage in the process of remixing. Suppose the artist cares not for the tools we have.

In that case, we develop new AI algorithms, processes, and techniques. I strongly believe that we must misuse the tools and push the boundaries of these tools—often designed for commercial purposes—by repurposing them in ways that expand our imagination, and challenge the dialogue surrounding AI art aesthetics. If we use the tools as intended we end up with the same images everybody is mindlessly creating using AI with simple word prompts.

While we may not have personally chosen the technologies we engage with, as artists, we shape them just as they shape us. These tools are not only creating and evolving alongside us but also redefining the way we perceive, interact with, and express creativity.

The Synthetic Evolution exhibition deconstructs and reinterprets existing hand-drawn works, using them as training sets for AI. This process allows the AI to further evolve and mutate these images, generating new iterations informed by additional key words inspired by the original drawings. These words act as guiding parameters, steering the AI’s algorithmic creativity and influencing the emergence of entirely new generative works derived from the original data

The images were selected from the Sacs, Membranes, Motors, and Vesicles series, as well as The Immaculate Organicism series. These works serve as the foundation for AI-driven transformations, fed into artificial intelligence and vision systems that utilize learning algorithms and generative adversarial networks (GANs). Through this process, the AI analyzes, reinterprets, and evolves the original compositions, generating new visual forms that emerge from the interplay between human intention and machine intelligence.

The fusion of microbial world drawings, machine diagrams, and biomorphic remixes—combined with the AI systems’ learning algorithms and keyword-driven inputs—resulted in dynamic explorations of color, composition, and form. This process not only generated new visual iterations but also gave rise to an evolved human-machine aesthetic, where organic and mechanical elements seamlessly intersect in a continuously shifting dialogue of creativity.

As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly shapes visual culture, we are witnessing the rise of authentic synthetic aesthetics—an entirely new creative paradigm. The integration of big data, vision systems, and advanced image analysis with AI has reached a level where artistic styles can be replicated with such precision that even experts can be deceived. This challenges our fundamental understanding of creativity, blurring the lines between human intention and machine-generated expression, and compelling us to reconsider what it truly means to create.

Part of the exhibition also features AI-generated images created through text-based prompts, which pull from vast databases of images across the World Wide Web. By using carefully selected words as input, the AI synthesizes new compositions, blending elements from diverse visual sources to generate unique, algorithmically crafted works. This process highlights the intersection of language, data, and machine creativity, further expanding the dialogue on the role of AI in contemporary artistic expression.

These images are fed into the system, where AI algorithms process and synthesize them into cohesive visual compositions. The AI works to resolve the complex collages generated from the multitude of words and phrases, interpreting and merging disparate elements into new, algorithmically structured forms. This process transforms linguistic input into dynamic visual outputs, further exploring the relationship between text, data, and machine-driven creativity.

Hundreds of images are rendered before carefully selecting just one or two that best align with the artistic vision. Once generated, I revisit these renders, refining them by enhancing color, adjusting lines, and redefining forms. This final stage of intervention bridges human intuition with machine generation, allowing for a deeper synthesis between AI-driven creation and personal artistic expression.

Just as biological species have evolved over time, so too have algorithmic species emerged, shaped by data, computation, and machine learning. The vast accessibility of knowledge at our fingertips has fundamentally transformed how we imagine and create, dissolving traditional boundaries between individual and collective intelligence. In this new paradigm, human creativity is no longer an isolated act but part of an emergent cognition—one that draws from the immense web of interconnected knowledge while still being guided by human notions of aesthetics, intuition, and meaning.

With machine learning, computers are approaching the threshold of exhibiting evolutionary survival instincts and the development of emergent, self-aware software agents. These systems continuously adapt, optimize, and refine their responses based on vast datasets, mimicking the principles of natural selection in digital form. As AI models grow increasingly autonomous, they hint at the potential for machine-driven evolution—raising profound questions about intelligence, agency, and the future of artificial cognition.

Epistemology has always been shaped by the lenses through which we perceive reality. When lenses were purely analog, crafted from glass, they profoundly altered our worldviews, expanding our ability to see and understand the universe. Today, while physical lenses remain, they are increasingly supplemented—or even supplanted—by silicon, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Databases and computational models now function as new epistemic lenses, reshaping not just how we see but how we process, interpret, and construct knowledge itself.

Data-driven, algorithmic ways of knowing are rapidly becoming the dominant mode of understanding and interpreting the world. As artificial intelligence and machine learning systems process vast amounts of information at unprecedented speeds, they increasingly shape decision-making, creativity, and even perception itself. This shift challenges traditional human-centered epistemologies, raising critical questions about the role of intuition, subjectivity, and meaning in an era where knowledge is increasingly mediated by algorithms.

Digital visualization and fabrication technologies are increasingly replacing the direct touch of the artist, transforming the creative process. The computer has become an ideational amplifier, extending artistic capabilities beyond traditional mediums. When combined with biological advancements like CRISPR-Cas9, these technologies open the door to the emergence of semi-living, constructed species—hybrids of the organic and the synthetic that challenge conventional distinctions between life and machine.

As a species, we are becoming more deeply intertwined with technology than ever before. In this age of computer-based art forms, the boundary between human and machine is dissolving, fostering an unprecedented level of intimacy between biological creativity and digital evolution.

We now experience nature primarily through the lens of our screens—phones, tablets, and smart TVs—where the natural world is replicated as images and videos, filtered through digital interfaces rather than direct experience. Our connection to nature has become increasingly mediated, transforming it into a spectacle consumed within the confines of technology.

At the same time, human data is constantly seeded, collected, and commodified, feeding into vast algorithmic systems that shape everything from online interactions to artistic creation. In this landscape, human-machine symbionts have fully emerged, blurring the boundaries between organic intuition and computational logic. This fusion is not only redefining artmaking but also actively influencing the trajectory of visual culture, altering how we create, perceive, and engage with the world around us.

This exhibition examines the intersections and divergences between natural and synthetic methods of artistic evolution, questioning the reciprocal relationship between human creativity and machine intelligence. It asks what the machine may learn from us and, conversely, what we may learn from the machine, through the artificial perceptions, replications, and transformations generated by algorithms.

As computer cognition emerges, these systems not only reinterpret artistic processes but also challenge our understanding of perception, originality, and the very nature of creative thought.

Another key element of this exhibition is a pair of edited video reels featuring artificially composed sound, offering a glimpse into the computer’s evolving creative process. These videos document the AI’s attempts to learn, adapt, and refine its outputs, showcasing the machine’s struggle to interpret and resolve the final images. As the algorithm works to match the artist’s forms, lines, and colors, it generates a dynamic, ever-shifting visual dialogue—revealing both the limitations and possibilities of machine-assisted creativity.

Exhibitions

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

UGO CARA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART                                                                                      Muggia, Italy, Sept, 21 2023
ROBOTICS; ARTE E ROBOTICA invites the Italian premiere of the Synthetic Evolution prints and videos  new renditions and world wide premiere of the Anthropogenic Slot Machine and  curated by Maria Campetelli.

FORT HAYES GALLERY                                                                                    Columbus, Ohio, US – March 13-April 22 2023
Flow: visual interpretations on the theme of water invites Synthetic Evolution AI prints and video, curated by Teresa Weidenbusch

HOPKINS HALL GALLERY                                                                                                     Nov 6-13, Columbus Ohio, 2023
Curator and Participant in the Synthetic Sublime Exhibition of current and emeritus Art and Technology faculty, Graduate Students, and staff in the Department of Art at The Ohio State University.

UNIVERSITY OF YORK                                                                                        York, England, 14-16 December 2022
Artist residency at the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, showing Synthetic Evolution works curated and invited by Dr. Sarah Bezan and Dr. Peter Sands.

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY                                                                                          Syracuse, New York, Nov 2022
Bio-Art Mixer presentation of my work and exhibition of three works and videos in the faculty gallery, invited by Professor Boryanna Rossa

THE FESTIVAL OF UNCONVENTIONAL COMPUTING, PROTO-COGNITION, AND SOUND  Bristol, UK, Sept-Oct 2022
Artworks at the edge of arts, science, philosophy, and engineering invite four works from Synthetic Evolution and videos curated by Irina Pretrova and organized by director Professor Adam Adamanzky.

FIG BILBAO                                                                                                                    Bilbao, Spain, November 2022
Centro Portuguese de Serigraphia exhibits the Synthetic Evolution works + the premiere of four new AI works invited by Joao Prates.

ANTONIO PRATES GALLERY                                 Lisbon, Portugal, June 2022-September 15, 2022
A one-person exhibition of Synthetic Evolution inspired by the intertwining of human and machine interactions. Invited by Antonio Prates in collaboration with Centro Portuguese de Serigraphia and Joao Prates.

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

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.