earthcode TEA 2021

By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a sense of retirement - this again in a consciousness of solitude. [E. A. Poe. The Domain of Arnheim.]

earthcode presents an interior and contained laboratory garden which attempts to implement a literal, artistic investigation of the links between the earth, code and the human psyche of the viewer. earthcode proposes the bootstrapping of a long-term, visible computational device self-constructed solely from the earth, and embedded within the earth as a critical monument to human technology. Culturings of rye grain and associated Claviceps Purpurea (ergot) fungus form elements of an earth computer, allowing the earth to manipulate, code and store computational or logical structures. Observers are provided with several windows into an underground, crystalline computational garden which is a part of the world.

earthcode has been exhibited as part of Jardín satélite, una exposición co-curadura por Gilberto González y Silvia Navarro Martín 2021, TEA Tenerife.

With many thanks to Koke and all at TEA, Tenerife.