- I will have a new artwork exhibited at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf for Eating the Universe. Food in Art opening on November 28th 2009 — and running through 28 February 2010. This new artwork, Mycotectural Alpha, is a catenary arch that has been grown out of fungus, and is a demonstration of principle for a larger building that is being planned. I will post images of the process and artwork once the show has opened.

Alliance

One of the great pleasures about making interdisciplinary artwork is meeting people from so many different backgrounds and professions. I am often in conversation with folks involved in science, education, music, food, the environment and technology. So… I have started a salon series called CRITTER as a way to further expand some of the interesting things going on between these worlds. Located at the Studio for Urban Projects' in the Mission District of San Francisco, CRITTER presents talks, classes, workshops and events as a way to crawl around in this vital space.

Enormous Microscopic Evening at CRITTER

The Machine In The Garden is a permanent outdoor installation and classroom for the Oxbow School in Napa, California. This project was created in collaboration with Marina McDougall and inspired by the Leo Marx book of the same title.

The garden’s elements reflect a conflict that has profoundly shaped the history of the American landscape and how we see it—the struggle between an industrialized environment and a bucolic, arcadian, countryside. Machine in the Garden takes the form of a folly and employs the narrative elements of the pastoral genre—idyll, rupture, and resolve.

You can see how the machine was installed here.

This is the first of three videos I am making about life in laboratory cultures, the other two of which will be shown later this year. Leviathans is composed from images of the slime-mold Physarum polycephalum, a very interesting organism for a number of reasons. The slime-mold, though diminutive in size, is able to travel relatively large distances in a short period of time while searching for food. This is due in great part to the way its body pulses and moves, which can be imagined as a harmonically rippling jellyfish like thing, propelling itself along on the oscillating waves of its own body. While kind of skanky looking on a larger scale, the slime-mold’s patterns and movements are mesmerizing and otherworldly when seen up close with good lighting.

Leviathans is narrated by three voices in a conversation amongst alien entities. These aliens reminisce on a range of subjects, including the ecology of living space, the nature of time travel, and the problems with super-intelligent computers.

BioTechnique has a ninety six page, full color catalog with the following essays:

NOTES ON NAMING LIFE-- George Gessert

MYTHIC BIO-TECHNE IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY: DESIRE, HOPE AND DREAD-- Adrienne Mayor

BIOTEKNECRONOMICON-- Phiip Ross

THE WORK OF ART AS LIFE-- Pamella M. Lee

If you would like to purchase a copy I am selling them for $12 each plus packing and shipping.

It can also be purchased at PRINTED MATTER in New York City.