To celebrate the 10th year of Prague's annual festival of digital creative culture, we were invited to display a series of works at the newly opened Kunsthalle gallery.
PHOTOSYSTEM II is a 6-piece animated video series driven by our fascination with the process of photosynthesis. It was first shown during the 4-day festival and then extended to remain on display for 3 additional months.
Commissioned by: Signal Festival
Exhibited at: Kunsthalle Prague
Design & Production: Zünc Studio
Footage: Filip Kopecký
Sound: Mauricio Lobo
Visuals: Zünc Studio
Without light there is no life. It is essential for plants to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen - a process known as photosynthesis. This process has allowed Earth to evolve into the biodiverse, oxygen-rich, green planet we know today.
PHOTOSYSTEM II explores the phenomenon of photosynthesis through a series of large-scale projections. It features an immersive fly-through of the eternally flourishing evolution, as well as an interactive work that grows tendrils and releases oxygen in response to the movement of visitors.
PHOTOSYSTEM II explores the phenomenon of photosynthesis through a series of large-scale projections. It features an immersive fly-through of the eternally flourishing evolution, as well as an interactive work that grows tendrils and releases oxygen in response to the movement of visitors.
By viewing these complex systems of adaptation through different lenses we can learn, be inspired, and discover novel solutions to today’s problems.
ABOUT THE WORKS
PART OF THE EQUATION (Interactive):
Part Of The Equation is a collaboration between Zünc Studio and Lukas Drevjany. This interactive piece allows the viewer to participate in the process of photosynthesis through motion sensors that react to their movements. As they walk in front of the screen or extend their arms, tendrils begin to spurt and oxygen bubbles are released.
Through this interaction, we are confronted with our symbiotic relationship with nature. At the same time, being reduced to a greenish silhouette emitting bubbles and growing fronds is humbling - a reminder that we are entirely dependent on photosynthesising plants for our own existence.
PHOTOSYSTEM II
Photosystem II, the namesake piece of the series, is a room-sized immersive projection that wraps around three walls to hold the viewer in its leafy embrace. The animated film progresses in complexity and scale - from a waving sea of singular sprouts to massive manmade structures spilling over with an abundance of greenery.
As the world around us and the organisms within it become more evolved, so too must plants. The fly-through of organic matter cycles through various states, suggesting that the human chapter on earth is a mere blip in the 3.4 billion years that organisms have been photosynthesising for.
PLASTIC DIET:
In Plastic Diet, we look into an ocean tank filled with tendrilled creatures darting through glittering clouds of debris, which attach to the sweepers on contact. The mundane task of garbage collection here becomes a glitzy underwater waltz.
The work is inspired by newly discovered plastic-eating bacteria, and imagines a future where these organisms have evolved to become self-propelling beings with an appetite for microplastics. Plastic Diet is also informed by the discovery that nearly half the oxygen we breathe is generated by ocean-dwelling bacteria and algae.
LIVING, BREATHING WALL:
As if part of the architecture of the room itself, Living, Breathing Wall pulsates slowly with micro-herb growth. Silhouetted figures moving behind the structure appear to be in the gallery space itself, walking where the viewer may have been wandering themselves just moments ago.
The geometry of the membrane-like wall is generated using voxel-building algorithms based on the infinitely connected gyroid structures found in nature. This organic architecture was then rendered with a soft, milky material, in what became an entirely CG process of biomimicry.
THE ROOTS ARE THE BATTERY:
In The Roots Are The Battery, particles of light run along the roots of a tree, framed from a low angle. The absence of soil provides a novel view of branching roots, and the crooked fingers of their intertwining limbs twinkle in the sunlight that weaves through from above.
The light animation highlights the storage of energies created through photosynthesis, as well as the transfer of nutrients that travel from the earth to the rest of the plant. It rotates slowly and constantly, allowing us to marvel at this otherwise unseen part of the plant.
BIO-ENCRYPTION:
Bio-Encryption shows clusters of bacteria swilling around a borderless space, flashing with binary hues of green and purple. The individual rods cooperate through transfers of illuminated colour, with waves of green transmitting outwards from the collective mass.
This work is informed by research into ‘infobiology’, and whether it is possible to store data in biological material. Experiments have found that one gram of e-coli has a storage capacity of 900 terabytes. In a world where data has become one of our most valuable commodities, the implications of this research are limited only by the imagination.
