Stick a Circuit-Board in a Plant-Pot
Currently in the Irish scene there is a trend in sculptural/ installation artworks which play with the watery-wet ALIVE world of growing plants and with wires, nodes, electric pulses and data collecting. I only say trend since that describes what's going on, it isn't a negative judgement, actually I really like pieces like this.
There's something that's hard to describe that is so mesmerizing when seeing work like this. I feel like a child at an aquarium or like when you look into a puddle with micro plants growing underneath the flood of water. Looking into a terrarium or a fish tank or a budgie in a cage in a GP waiting room when you're 5. This is an abstract and magic sort of feeling that stands out because , I think, it contrasts with the general message of ecosystems and science based art that pieces like this come from.
[1, Taken by me in RHA Gallery at Bogskin Exhibition
Works like [1] We Share the Same Air - Fiona Mc Donald and [2]Unnatural Deselection - Luis Enrique MartÃn both take data from the physical status of the plants in the work and then transform this into data shown on a central (ish) screen which changes and moves during exhibition. Wires and chips are left uncovered. We know that the "natural environment" is effected by people and changes over time. Data based on this is easy to find (pollen counts, CO2 charts, wind strengths) but do we ever see those physical connections in nature? The wires clamped to leaves running into computers, fans whirring as ones and zeros are calculated...no..
I think the that the reason that pieces like this feel special is that they are like an eco-futurist-illustrated-fairytale. Audiences subconsciously feel like they understand the magical strands between the illogical natural world and the mythos of climate undulations and how the wizards (brain-type-A-graph-makers) can turn these rounded and organic shapes into straight lines and bars and predictions and numbers.
Whenever I see pieces like these in person I just think they look so fab and are captivating to be around. There's something about attaching plants to computers that feels phantasmagorical and awe inducing.
[2. From Irish Arts Review, link below]
related links to give a read:
https://www.urbangardensweb.com/2015/09/24/hybrid-art-project-creates-symbiosis-between-plants-and-computers/
https://www.fionamcdonald.digital/#/cities/
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