Sketches for an earth computer

Sketches for an earth computer presents a series of living "laboratory" studies alongside photographic documentation of various attempts to implement a literal, artistic investigation of the links between the earth, code and the human psyche of the viewer.

The earth computer 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.

The total environment (geophysical, biological, electro-chemical) itself encodes and manipulates active, new computational-crystalline structures which compute, impact on and re-code this environment within a complex feedback system.

The living "lab" studies consist of a series of containers which explore within an intentionally restricted, demarcated environment the various coded and energetic transformations which the earth computer enacts. These containers are open to, and influenced by local environmental and electromagnetic changes; these changes visibly re-code the enclosed substrates.

Accompanying images document the construction and prototyping of the earth computer within the landscape (enacted early 2014), making explicit how the lab studies relate to the wider notion of an earth computer.

[Installation view. Anarchronism, Brussels. Two earth sketches/containers with horizontal container and documentation of forest action.]

[Installation view. Anarchronism, Brussels. Horizontal earth container (zinc and wood) with earth, core memory, oyster mushroom mycelium, automated sprayer and laser/mirror magnetometer display.]

[Installation view. Anarchronism, Brussels. Horizontal earth container (zinc and wood) with earth, core memory, oyster mushroom mycelium, automated sprayer and laser/mirror magnetometer display.]

[Installation view. CY NET ART, Dresden. Horizontal earth container (zinc and wood) with earth, silver nitrate, oyster mushroom mycelium, automated sprayer and laser/mirror magnetometer display.]

[Installation view. FIELDS, Riga. Three earth sketches/containers with documentation of forest action.]

[Installation view. FIELDS, Riga. Horizontal earth container (zinc and wood) with earth, silver nitrate, oyster mushroom mycelium, automated sprayer and laser/mirror magnetometer display.]

[Installation view. FIELDS, Riga. Vertical earth container (perspex and wood) with water filtering through gypsum (Salaspils quarry) and forest earth (Pokaini).]

[Installation view. FIELDS, Riga. Hanging earth container (perspex and RTV silicon) with forest earth and alternating copper and cuprous oxide plates.]

[Installation view. UNDER COVER, Berlin. Earth container (perspex and silicon) with forest earth (Schorfheide), oyster mushroom mycelium, silver nitrate/gelatine mix, cuprous oxide powder and sprayed on copper/graphite antenna.]

[Installation view. UNDER COVER, Berlin. Close up on copper/graphite antenna entering earth container.]

WMMNA interview July 2014 detailing aspects of Sketches.

Sketches for an earth computer, in varying configurations, has been shown as part of:

FIELDS, Riga 15.05.14+

Rhizope, Estonia 29.05.14+

UNDER COVER Neue Heimat, Berlin September 2014

CY NET ART Hellerau, Germany 13-19.11.14

Anarchronism iMAL Brussels 13 May - 14 June 2015

ArtGreenHouse / Greenhouse Laboratory Center Dürnast/ European House of Art Upper Bavaria 7-9.7.2015

A workshop based on key elements of the Sketches was conducted as part of Mal au pixel, 2014 Report] and in Montreal, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Mexico City in 2015. See Earth code workshops.

earthcode

ecnotes

With thanks to Daniel Belasco Rogers, Nicolas Legros, and all at RIXC, Rhizope, Neue Heimat, CY NET, iMAL, and ArtGreenhouse.