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

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 film and artwork urge us to imagine how urban signs could more effectively communicate the interconnectedness of technology, climate change, rising sea levels, and natural disasters. These issues are intricately linked, yet rarely highlighted in the signage that fills our cities.

“SIGNS” pushes the boundaries of informational spaces, advocating for signs that promote social justice, question the pervasive collection and sale of our personal data, and alert us to the potential infringement of our rights through everyday consumer choices. The film and artwork invite us to envision signage that prompts deeper reflection on societal issues and the pervasive impacts of modern technologies.

With their potential for immediate and impactful communication, signs can reconnect us to an ancient, pictographic understanding, transcending language barriers to convey universal messages. Drawing on Eduardo Kohn’s insights in “How Forests Think,” the film posits that signs are not mere passive indicators but active prompts for present action, hinting at future consequences.

“SIGNS” invites viewers to scrutinize the messages missing from our daily landscape and question whether the signs around us genuinely serve the public good by warning us of unseen yet impending dangers. It’s a call to rethink the role of signage in our urban spaces and demand more from the information we encounter daily.

SIGNS ARE INTERPRETATIONS THAT TRY TO JUSTIFY THEMSELVES AND NOT THE REVERSE.

• Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Freud, Marx.

We often hear, “Driving is a privilege, not a right.” Breaking the rules and ignoring signs can lead to costly tickets, jail terms, and even death. There are immediate dangers, like entering a rail crossing when a train is coming, and long-term risks, such as those posed by smoking, which takes the lives of half of all smokers.

What about signs that warn us of inevitable doom because of car usage and polluting carbon output? What about signs that think more systemically, examining the relationships between global warming, sea level rise, and hurricanes? What about signs that express solidarity, seek social justice, and warn of the potential infringement of our rights through everyday products and facilities?

This begs the question: What signs are we not seeing? Do signs in particular contexts serve the public good by highlighting real future dangers that are not immediately apparent?

These are the signs that warn of less visible present and future threats. While scientists are certain that CO2 leads to global warming and increases hurricanes, signage can make this more apparent with graphics illustrating the dangers. Greenhouse gases, emitted from the tailpipes of cars and trucks, act like a toxic, dirty blanket around Earth, trapping energy in the atmosphere and causing it to warm. More heat means more dangerous hurricanes and tornadoes.

Consider this: oceans absorb the heat equivalent of seven Hiroshima nuclear explosions every second. Signs can communicate this alarming fact alongside more familiar road signs.

Signs are ubiquitous, found on roads, in churches, and in stores, each with design characteristics that give them authority, especially within urban zones. They are part of information and knowledge management, aligning with epistemology and equating the right to post a sign with authority. We are aware of these dangers, though sometimes we are not. 

This is especially apparent with surveillance technologies, which often yield poor results that disproportionately impact BIPOC people. Shouldn’t we have signs warning the public of the dangers of algorithms used to label individuals as more criminal or suspect based on biased data sets? 

Phrenology, which used the shape of one’s head to predict criminality, has been discredited, yet we continue down similar paths with biased AI.

Commercial signage fills our cultural landscapes, influencing social beliefs while invoking state-based authority.

Regretfully tech companies have promised governments that artificial intelligence (AI) can identify criminal behavior. Even schools have gotten into looking at children’s faces and sanctioning them for not paying attention by looking at eye gaze if a child is daydreaming and climbing into imagination, then that must be promoted rather than focusing on standardized lessons.

It is clear now that artificial intelligence algorithms have biases built into them, given the data sets are often constructed with the biases built in. However, we continue to go down these roads, beckoning an earlier time when phrenology was thought to offer some way of understanding and predicting behavior based on nothing more than the bumps on and shape of one’s head.

In the new physical reality, the distinction between virtual and real is diminishing as our cars and roads save and sell our data. With “smart cars,” the line between transportation and computers is blurred.

Driving a car now means agreeing to terms of service that include data collection, updates, and sharing your data. Most cars collect vast amounts of data, including GPS location, speed, safety system status, and even voice data, often without explicit consent.

When we drive, simply using the car we are operating, creates a need to accept the terms of service. This means agreeing to live, downloaded updates, or share your data, whether you agree to these downloads or not.

For most cars, the event data recorder (EDR) data, the computer inside the car stores your GPS location, speed, airbag deployments, crash avoidance alerts, impact data, safety system status, braking and swerving/cornering events, seat belt settings, vehicle direction (heading), audio or video information such as information collected from camera images and sensor data and yes voice. The car can collect as much as 25 gigabytes of data per hour, know how much we weigh, and track how much weight we gain.

There are always terms of service online, and how can we even agree to data collected, aggregated, and sold by car companies?

Given cars and their data collection, let us not forget that Dave, the founder of Wendy’s, died at 69 after a long battle with liver cancer.

When you consume fatty or fried foods and pile on the salt, your liver is literally under attack. Let us not forget the poor cows or chickens that get sucked into our industrial food system. The combined total of chickens (19 billion), cows (1.5 billion), sheep (1 billion), and pigs (1 billion) living at any one time are three times higher than the number of people on the planet.

Fifty billion chickens are slaughtered for food yearly – a figure that excludes male chicks and unproductive hens killed in egg production. Nearly 1.5 billion pigs are killed to feed the growing appetite for pork, bacon, ham, and sausages – a number that has tripled in the last 50 years.

Half a billion sheep are taken to slaughter every year. The number of goats slaughtered overtook the number of cows eaten during the 1990s, although the figure for cattle excludes the dairy industry. The environmental cost of our growing appetite for meat is alarming, given the rainforest is now one of the prime locations cattle producers look to satisfy our insatiable desires for beef.

Agriculture is responsible for 10-12% of greenhouse gas emissions. We must also not forget that eating plants, insects, and any living thing are violent to that entity.

Perhaps other signs that have one consider the nature of eating meat or the pure act of eating and what a violent act can be may also help humans understand their complicity in those acts.

We may confront producing meat on factory farms or consuming monocultural potato crops in fries and eating at such restaurants through the intelligent placement of these signs near to where humans consume. Would you eat burgers daily if you knew that one tree was felled in the Brazilian Rainforest? 

Fonts and colors are essential to communicate things like a global warning, danger, or demarcating direction. Color permits the signs to stand out from their background and be more effective with the light reflected off of cars or bike headlamps, further giving them an illuminated power for high-contrast and high legibility.

Given all the pollution poured into our atmosphere each year by the car and truck industry, we also need to have a sign reminding us that the oceans, which absorb the most carbon on earth, produce the most oxygen.

Of course, we are sharing breath with the algae, and we are sharing breath with other humans and animals as well.

As we are driving, we are often also in a state of self-reflection, finding faces in clouds, and what better opportunity to find out what is on your mind than by taking a quick Rorschach Sign Test?

This makes me wonder when we will have drive-through psychiatrist meetings with drive-in hookups that sit on our windows. One could just recline their driver’s seat and have a drive-in movie-style speaker mounted to their window.

Still, before these become standard as drive-through convenience stores, we may just have to let our imaginations go while driving in the quietude of our vehicles.

We have speed traps, and what about mind traps that lead us down neural paths of thought we may not intend or feel comfortable traveling on?

Police can use breathalyzers and speed traps to identify and prove your crime. In the future, we may have portable MRI units to see where your blood is rushing. Let’s hope that is not coming to a TESLA car soon.

Today we have RORSCHACH SIGN TESTS to see what you are thinking – but will you tell us?

In this sign series, I use an alternative model that democratizes the production and exchange of information, with warnings to the public for the public good.

They take a medium controlled by city officials and subvert the use of signs into one that

supports education and our urban communities. This enables knowledge sharing and direct participation.

Then some signs warn of election meddling, and the whole host of new laws that may suppress all from voting.

Let us hope we do not return to that international nightmare. However, we must remember it is our “supreme court” and the misnomer of “citizens United”  where the court’s ruling freed corporations and unions to spend gobs of money on “electioneering communications” and to advocate for the election or defeat of candidates effectively drowning out individual and collective voices of citizens.

My goal with these artworks is to expose a policy, examine authority, and establish accessible technological opportunities that allow knowledge dissemination for the common good.

This helps inform ways and approaches to enable the social and community appropriation of knowledge and communication technologies for local information, production, discussion, and exchange.

When you enter a church, for example, that conjures the figure of MOTHER MARY and appeals to guilt to obey GOD, are you questioning if what you are being told is an immaculate conception or maybe more so an Immaculate Misdirection?

Should guilt be a part of a social strategy to control behavior?

IMMACULATE MISDIRECTION. By Ken Rinaldo

 

Churches have used the power of signs and iconic symbols most successfully. The spectacular architecture of ancient churches, stained glass windows with streaming light rays, and Jesus nailed to a cross to atone for our sins all speak volumes about signs.

Could signs and symbols be used on the exterior of churches to help the flock question more thoroughly, the nature of these “truths”?

We can also place signs in gallery contexts, and they can speak with the same authority we are used to seeing on roadsides. Of course, if you took the Rorschach test above, perhaps you were thinking of some things that had to do with the computer relationships you have been having?

Algorithms make fine friends for that dopamine rush we get with Facebook Likes. Though are we “ALONE TOGETHER,” as MIT technology and society specialist Sherry Turkle argues.

While there are mental influence signs and how they can help query and diagnose your thoughts in the privacy of our bikes or cars, there are also signs appropriate to the global circulation of human dust and breath. This is significant in the COVID-19 moment, and the global pandemic, where we are afraid to breathe, and everyone can be seen as a vector of the virus.

Re-contextualizing these into the gallery environment is also fun. They seem to carry the same authority of speaking words with the power of color, icons, and tightly reflective materials. And let us not forget that airplanes were one of the primary ways the Covid virus was spreading internationally.

What about cell phone use and children. I am forever annoyed to seeing humans ignoring their children and focused more on their cell phones.

We can also mix signs with other roadside paraphernalia. Warning cones also represent ways to speak loud and colorful messages. Combining things like dust mops (suggestive of bacteria) or natural human hair with the two signs below creates new associations.

It also tells us that we must surrender to the tiny microbes in our stomachs and skin to create the ultimate group-consciousness moment.

String theory and quantum electrodynamics surmise that there are eleven dimensions, though, in Newtonian space, we have three.
What a bummer if, while driving, one of those 3rd dimensions collapses. It could ruin your engine and your whole day.

 

 

And then some signs reference the play of language below.

All signs are 12 x 18 inches mounted on aluminum, with weather-resistant reflective vinyl.

All signs are 12 x 18 inches mounted on aluminum, with weather-resistant reflective vinyl.

Mounting holes are drilled into aluminum, though do not perforate the vinyl until you choose to hang them, with hardware supplied with each order.

Signs are available for $110. each, or two for $100. each or three at $90 each, as part of this unlimited edition. Shipping will be calculated and varies based on your location.

Shipping to CA is about $20. from Ohio. To calculate your shipping costs, please send me your address to kenrinaldoATgmail.com.

Hardware is available to hang signs at $2:50 for two.

 

Collections

CAMERON ART MUSEUM,   Wilmington, North Carolina Algae Sign

CULTURAL ARTS BUILDING GALLERY   Wilmington, North Carolina

They are available in larger sizes, and ask for a quote if interested.

Obey all local laws in posting your signs, please!

Ken Rinaldo Concept, words, location photos, and signs Layouts and Illustrator work

Emergent Systems:

Ken Rinaldo: Illustrator and photoshop production
Trademark Gunderson: Illustrator and photoshop production

McDonald’s is most skilled in using signs and symbols to sell its products. This makes them particularly effective at selling their goods, but have we questioned the impact on our bodies and the collective global body?A good deal of beef consumers may not be aware of the extent of global warming, degradation, and killing of the rainforests by just eating that burger and fries.

 

Additional Exhibitions

WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS                                                                                                 Columbus, Ohio. April 19, 2025
SIGNS as part of the Ohio Shorts Film Festival by Wexner Center 6:00 PM in film video theater.

ART IN ODD PLACES                                                                                                                       New York, NY, Oct 18-20, 2024
CARE 14th street Festival showing select SIGNS and New York premiere of the film SIGNS invited by curators Patricia Miranda & Christopher Kaczmarek. Founded by Ed Woodham.

CLIMATE FILM FESTIVAL                                                                                                               New York, NY, Oct 18-20, 2024
The New York Premiere of SIGNS curated and organized by Alex Turnbull

THE TELLURIDE  INSTITUTE                                                                                           Telluride Colorado, July 26-Aug 2, 2024
The Nature of Information: Exploring the nature of difference that makes a difference. World wide premiere of the film SIGNS invited by Richard Lowenberg

CAMERON ART MUSEUM,   Wilmington, North Carolina, Jan 27-May 2022
Confluence Exhibition curated by the Algae Society and Gene Felice invites the work SIGNS, including a worldwide premiere of a sign on Algae and the work Diatomaceous.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, Wilmington, N Carolina, Feb 2022.
Exhibition and visiting artist presentation of  SIGN works. Invited by Professor Gene Felice

CULTURAL ARTS BUILDING GALLERY   Wilmington, North Carolina, Jan 30- 2022
Protest Signs: Projected Voices in the Community curated by Dr. Travis Williams. The exhibition invited by Gene Felice, the SIGNs works, Racial Bias Algorithm Ahead, We are As Much Bacteria as Human Cells, Are you an Individual? Global Warming Ahead, You Breathed at Least One Molecule + Visiting artist presentation Invited by Professor Gene Felice.

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 curator Claudia Berlinski videotaped this excellent performance during the show’s run. I loved the flute, fans, and piano coming together with all that musical cellular dust.

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

Animal agriculture resulting in deforestation, ocean dead zones, biodiversity loss, and pesticide pollution contribute to this dangerous extinction. One recent study estimated that insect populations have declined by 40% since scientists have tracked populations.

In 2017, a 27-year-long population monitoring study revealed a 76% decline in flying insects alone, which will provoke cascading effects on food webs and jeopardize ecosystems.

As insects are at the base of the food chain critical to pollination, this is a truly global tragedy with implications for the environment beyond human food systems. For example, 80% of wild plants depend on insects for pollination, while 60% of birds rely on insects as a primary food source.

The Opera of Dying Insects’ sound and video work wishes to address this issue with an interspecies opera that is auto-composed by insects eating a moist log. Opera was chosen as a language of communication to simulate human emotion. At the same time, images of colorful, morphologically fascinating, and nearly extinct insects are featured in this work’s video channel.

In this work, the pillbugs (Armadillidium Vulgare) live in a constructed paradise of green mosses and microgreens within a moist environment as they slowly eat and deconstruct a wet log. They co-exist in this constructed ecosystem with domestic insects such as leafhoppers, species of lichens, fungi, and bacteria.

These “bugs” are not insects, though they are crustaceans closely resembling crabs and shrimp. The characteristic behavior of these crustaceans is they can roll up into a ball when they feel threatened or if the environment is too dry.

They are essential to the ecosystem as they return organic matter to the soil so that it may be digested further by fungi, protozoans, and bacteria. This process produces a natural supply of nitrates, phosphates, and other vital nutrients that plants need to thrive.

Their ancestors lived in the ocean. However, ancient pill bugs crawled out of the sea millions of years ago to carve a life for themselves on dry land. Like their ocean ancestors, pill bugs have gills that work great in water or moist environments. Their gills are exposed mucous membranes that absorb oxygen into the blood that feeds the rest of the body.

For installation of this work in foreign lands, woodlice (pillbugs) are on every continent of earth, and the natural insects and soil to construct the ecosystem, are always sourced locally vs. flying them about.

In the installation, cameras connected to artificial intelligence software view the inside of the constructed ecosystem. Bright projectors project to the walls of the building with large-scale views of this micro-world. When the software senses the pillbugs eating or moving about, these inside images are mixed with video images, also projected to the walls of the installation. Current insect species already extinct or threatened with extinction are also remixed in the videos.

The musical and operatic parts are mixed and remixed from current and past tragic operas, and they are triggered through MAX MSP and Jitter software playing through amplified computer speakers.  

Soil: As part of the work, a transplanted cube of the earth is harvested from a local natural forest.

I will perform a “soil transplant,” where I take a small 40 centimeters x 40 centimeters x 23-centimeter-deep cube of soil with branch and pill bugs and transplant that into the glass vitrine with moist mosses. When the exhibition is complete, the cube of the earth is placed back into a local arboreal forest.

As the insects eat and mate in the glass vitrine, their movements are sensed with video cameras and analyzed with artificial intelligence software to determine their location and speed. The data derived from these movements trigger portions of these AI-generated auto-scripted operas that have been partially composed using the AI software.

To generate the opera, we use existing and custom recordings of insects and opera recordings and the software, allowing one sound to morph into the other seamlessly.

As people observe the large projected images of the pill bugs and other insect cast members in this work to view their micro-world at a scale of their own. This allows humans to notice their subtlety and beauty and realize that we must cease dismissing insects’ importance in our ecosystems.

In many ways, pillbugs are miraculous creatures as they cleanse the soils of heavy metals and are considered hyperaccumulators are pulling lead and heavy metals from the ground. Their ability to safely remove heavy metals from soil can be important for cleaning up soil pollutants such as cadmium and arsenic. In coal spoils, for example, and slag heaps, pill bugs can survive and prosper. When they take in heavy metals, they crystallize these ions in their guts, which become spherical deposits in their midgut. With this ability, pillbugs can survive in the most contaminated sites where most creatures can’t.

In 2015, a study by Yale and other universities found that pill bugs play a crucial role in controlling the global climate. By consuming fungus, pillbugs are responsible for breaking down organic matter in the soil. This is a process that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As our atmosphere warms, fungal activity may increase, producing more carbon. However, when pill bugs are present, they can reduce the effects of increased temperatures by consuming more of that fungus.

Still, we must not contaminate the soils and feel these ancient arthropods while crawling from the sea are the best conductors of this opera for dying insects meant to awaken humans’ irresponsible relationship to our delicate ecosystems,

Below are 3D visuals of the original idea. To date, the Legs have been cut in steel and await a physical exhibition for full construction of the original concept with the hairy “insect” legs.

Cutting the legs in 1/4 inch plate steel on a plasma cutter. Thanks, Andrew Newbold.

Exhibitions:

THE BRADBURY ART MUSEUM                                                                                              Jonesboro, Arkansas, Aug 2026
The“more-than-human” exhibition shows The Opera for Dying Insects Two, invited and curated by Jane Tingley 

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.

SVA FLAT IRON GALLERY                                           New York, NY, Sept 28-Oct 17, 2022
Darwins Paradox: A Decade of Bio Art Curated and invited by Suzanne Anker and Tarah Rhoda invites the Opera For Dying Insects

DA FESTIVAL                                                              Sophia, Bulgaria,  Oct 2021
Bulgarian premiere of the Opera of Dying Insects giving voice to dying insect populations invited by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova

FACTT20/21                                                                     Lisbon, Portugal March 2021
IMPROBABLE TIMES invites The Opera for Dying Insects video works  curated by Marta Demenezes and supported by Cultivamos Cultura

COSI SCIENCE FESTIVAL                                     Columbus, Ohio, May 8, 2021
Opera of Dying Insects giving voice to dying insect populations. Invited by curators COSI Science Festival Project Team; Stephen, Allie, and Josh.

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.

DECAMERON ROW                                             New York, NY, Ongoing 2020
Invites The Opera for Dying Insects video works  curated by Sherry Huss

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.

Ken Rinaldo; Concept, 3D modeling, sound, rendering, and direction

Special Thanks

TradeMark Gunderson; sound engineering, video programming, Max MSP

Andrew Newbold: Plasma Cutting at The Ohio State University

References

• Algorithms and organisms – The Student Life (Harvey Mudd College student magazine), article covering Rinaldo’s talk and installation, including “Opera for Dying Insects,” highlighting its use of AI and insect extinction themes The Student Life+1Ken Rinaldo+1.

• ISEA “Why Sentience?” Proceedings – part of the symposium where Opera for Dying Insects video work was presented under “Symbiotic Intertwining from Parasites for Symbionts” curated by Elizabeth Demaray, positioning it in scholarly discourse on bio‑art and sentience Ken Rinaldo+1isea-archives.siggraph.org+1.

• Art Laboratory Berlin / Regine Rapp – curator/theoretician specializing in art‑science. Though not exclusively about Rinaldo, her broader work places Borderless Bacteria and related works (conceptually akin) in context, instrumental in situating similar bio‑art practices artlaboratory-berlin.org.

• Beyond the Human: Unstable Media Art Constructing… (Katazyna Jankovska, thesis) – discusses Ken Rinaldo’s earlier cybernetic installations (e.g. The Flock) as examples of living systems in art, reinforcing his longstanding intersection of organic behavior and media art, a lineage culminating in Opera for Dying Insects Ken Rinaldo+2thesis.eur.nl+2The Student Life+2.

• Wikipedia – Ken Rinaldo biography – while general, emphasizes his focus on interactive biological art installations, providing reliable background context Wikipedia.

• Antennae issue series (e.g. Vegetal Entanglements, Speculative Taxidermy) – Edited by Giovanni Aloi, these essay collections explore plant and animal agency in contemporary art, providing curatorial and theoretical resonance to Rinaldo’s insect‑centric bio‑opera works saic.academia.edu.

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.

Exhibitions

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

EUGENIO DE ALMEIDA FOUNDATION                         Évora, Portugal, 10-May-Oct 2021
Alter(action) commissions CRISPR Seed Resurrection by Ken Rinaldo and curated by Marta De Menezes.

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

Collections

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

On the image is a clock dial connected to a stepper motor. As long as the global warming index increases, the clock’s dial spins erratically. The dial is connected to an Arduino networked to a Raspberry Pi microprocessor connected to the web and a live clock giving data about the current amount of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere. 

The 3D modeled cold fusion reactor is connected to a post-nature branch and stone, which electronics and data have now occupied. An LCD monitor with a global warming index (GWI) reads out on the LCD monitor connected to the world wide web with white storm clouds composited in real-time moving by on display.

The display sits in a puddle of oil & water within an oil pan, and a mirror at the bottom of the pan projects an overhead spotlight back to the installation’s walls.

The word frustration in the title is that solar, wind, geothermal, and wave power already provide real solutions to many of our energy needs. We continue to follow dreams of free energy independence and supremacy with carbon extractivist policies of fracking, coal mining, and oil refining that continue to pollute our environments.

Still, fusion does offer hope, and China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), also known as the Chinese Artificial Sun, sustained a nuclear fusion reaction for more than 17 minutes in Jan of 2022. The superheated plasma within the reactor reached 126 million degrees Fahrenheit, roughly five times hotter than the sun.

Cold fusion is one of the cleanest energy sources available because it can replicate the sun’s physics through merging atomic nuclei while generating high energy outputs for electricity generation.

Given that we do not yet have any of these technologies yet implemented, though we have workable solutions today, such as solar and wind, this work offers frustration and hope simultaneously. It is important to note that humans have worked for 70 years to achieve cold fusion.

We are still working on cold fusion, though we have not yet achieved it. In contrast, we have workable solutions today; the clock hand will continue to spin erratically, emblematic of the erratic weather the earth is experiencing. If the dial on this 3D print stops spinning erratically, it is a sign that global warming is not increasing.

Regretfully, the dial is constantly spinning as the number continues to increase, given our global addiction to carbon-based energy extraction and burning.

The dead branch also has lichen growing and continues to consume the energy supplied by the sun initially.

Exhibitions

CAFA MUSEUM                                                                                                         Beijing, China,  April 3-May 2023
Eco Vision Plan Exhibition invites the Maximum Frustration Compressor curators Jing Siyang and Dean Song Xiewei of CAFA Beijing.

THE URBAN ART SPACE                                                                                               Columbus, Ohio Oct-Nov 2019
Faculty of the Department of Art exhibition showing the 3D animation of the Continuous War Train, the worldwide premiere of the Maximum Frustration Compressor & Automatist human and machine drawings.

Materials

CNC cut frame, 3D print, Arduino microcontrollers, Stepper motor, Raspberry Pi processor connected to the web, rock and stick, oil pan, and mirror.

Ken Rinaldo; concept, construction electronics
TradeMark Gunderson Raspberry Pi interfacing to web
Ty Pavia illustrator cut files for CNC
Nate Gorgon CNC milling of the frame
Amy Youngs video capture

They are part of an ongoing practice I have had for 30 years, often as a relaxation from more technical art pursuits.

After I created 73 of these drawings, I made them into a digital coloring book for further development and the addition of color.

The works are on display at the Urban Arts Space in Columbus, Ohio, in 2019.

Automatist Robot Drawings 2010 are from custom drawing robots invited and commissioned by the Universidad Tres Febrero in Argentina in 2010 — created on-site in Argentina by deconstructing and reconstructing bump and turn robotic toys.

I attached pens and allowed gravity and the constraints of a gold frame to limit their wanderings in these mindless machine automatist drawings. At the exhibition at the UAS, t was fun to juxtapose these robotic drawings with more imagistic approaches to human drawings.

Ken Rinaldo artist

Exhibitions

ANTONIO PRATES GALLERY                           Lisbon, Portugal, June 23-Sept 15, 2022
A solo worldwide premiere of the exhibition Synthetic Evolution works using artificial intelligence software to evolve original 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 URBAN ART SPACE                                                                                               Columbus, Ohio Oct-Nov 2019
Faculty of the Department of Art exhibition showing the 3D animation of the Continuous War Train, the worldwide premiere of the Maximum Frustration Compressor & Automatist human and machine drawings.

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.

They are dimensional and flat simultaneously, printed on Arches printmaking paper.

They are experiments in order and chaos, and the ones I find myself most attached to are the ones that I could not wholly control, where the filament thread gets smaller and spirals in unplanned directions.

Some drawings were created by scanning existing photos, creating depth maps in Cinema 4D software, and then letting the rapid prototyping printer do the printing.

In the spirit of John Cage, I enjoyed the chance operations that would result from scans, 3D morphogenesis, and printing.

In the one below, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, Louvre, Paris, France, was scanned and repainted after the fact.

In the one below, 3D humans were created, collapsed, and printed. I was particularly interested in how the one below gave the appearance or suggestion of a peg leg, and love the wispy piece of black filament that moves toward the top of the frame.

In the one below, I enjoyed how the dark lines of the printer enunciate the figure within, and the infill that is naturally part of the 3D printing process lends itself to paying homage to Piet Mondrian, though more so, they seem to suggest the human figure is being compressed into a cartesian space.

Some machine drawings were allowed to go longer, allowing more infill, as in the one below.

They fulfill a long-standing philosophy about looking to the edges of machines for places where artistry can be found by misusing the tools.

By Ken Rinaldo

Studio Assistant Danner Seyfer Sprague.

Printed on a Type A Machine with PLA plastic.