Michael Ang

I moved back to San Francisco (though currently in Vancouver en route to Alaska… see the next post). Had the chance to take Strange Attractor to a meadow full of wildflowers in Northern California. The meadow was filled with several species of butterflies. There were white butterflies (positive ident forthcoming) feeding on the minerals in the mud at the edge of the meadow. I installed Strange Attractor and several butterflies came to visit over the course of a few hours. The white butterflies seemed to prefer the white laser cut flowers. The preference of the butterflies for the flowers seems to vary with the species but more tests would be needed to confirm this.

Aside from the “results” it was interesting to see the flowers out in a natural setting and wonder what role technology has in a mostly wild location.

Flickr photo set

Natalie Jeremijenko and I released two dozen butterflies in the OOZ garden. We helped them feed from some watermelon in the Strange Attractor artificial flowers then observed their behaviour. The Monarchs stayed at Strange Attractor longer and were more likely to leave, fly around the garden a bit and return to the flowers. The Painted Ladies were less likely to return once they took off. The flower design seemed to matter, with the laser cut acrylic disks being more popular than the inkjet printed designs. The blue, orange and red laser cut disks appeared to be more enticing than the white one.

A robotic Monarch was employed to see if it would attract or repel the real butterflies. They seemed mostly indifferent, but longer observation is needed as the effect is most likely to be seen as butterflies approach from a distance.

Flickr photo set

I took some pictures at the Biology and Art: Two Worlds or One? conference presented by the New York Academy of Science.

I hadn’t realized that Theo Jasen had used a genetic algorithm to get the lengths for his beach animals. There are 11 sections in each leg that contribute of the shape of the motion. If he had tried 10 possible lengths for each of those sections the possibilities exponentially rise. So he wrote a program to try some different possibilities, see how well they met the criteria, then use those as the basis for a new generation of possible solutions. The net effect was to navigate through the space of possible solutions in an evolutionary way. All this on an Atari!

A lot of thought provoking discussion in the talks. Awesome to see some of the scientists presenting their work and having some of the same enthusiasm as the artists. The talks on animal locomotion and how visual representation affects the teaching of science were standouts for me. Michael Joaquin Grey kind of blew my mind with his combination of conceptual, aesthetic and entrepreneurial work. Still processing…

Interesting conference coming up in NYC on Biology and Art. Opening talk by Wim Delvoye, creator of Cloaca. The rest of the talks pair an artist with a scientist in a related field. Theo Jansen will be there!

Biology and Art: Two Worlds or One?
Sponsored by: The New York Academy of Sciences

This conference will explore the nature of the science-art interface, the inspiration this interface provides to scientists and artists alike, and the impact of these interactions on art, research, and other human endeavors. More specifically, the conference will focus on how biological objects—whether viruses, animals, plants, cells, or organelles—become an inspiration for certain artists’ work, and how scientists—ever so particular about accuracy and specificity—respond to such artistic representations.

The brilliant (and twisted) Real Ben Brown sent me this fantastic video of a dance interpretation of protein synthesis carried out with hundreds of students on a football field in 1971. It’s narrated by Nobel laureate Paul Berg and check out that sound track! All kinds of awesome.