AT6 - Exhibition : Life and Matter
FRENG
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 29 AND SUNDAY MARCH 1 FROM 12:00 to 19:00
From a ballet of droplets to the living tissues of a biological robot, come and discover how art poetically tackles the contemporary questions of life and matter.
AT6Ecological Explorations
L'origine du Monde
By AnneMarie Maes in collaboration with the Hybrid Forms Laboratory of Raoul Frese
Can we use bacteria as a power source? “L’origine du monde” is an artistic representation of research into the possibilities of cyanobacteria and micro-algae as a source for renewable energy and novel biodegradable materials. The installation shows a strongly enlarged bacterial chain made from glass cells. Every cell is filled with cyanobacteria producing real-time photosynthesis. Together they form a complex microbial population that communicates via quorum sensing and reduces CO2 emissions whilst producing oxygen and biopolymers.
Continuum
By Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves in collaboration with the Eyes on Mars Project
Do you know what a sunset on Mars looks like? The team investigates the Martian landscape, allowing one to feel what s-he would feel if s-he was on the red planet, at the meeting point of artistic interpretation and scientific data. This video installation acts as a permanent window on the Martian landscape, whereas the “Bas-Reliefs” give an overview of the Martian topographic and its shadows. This declination throws new light on Mars that paradoxically invites the audience to reflect on its own planet.
AT6Challenging the matter
Suspended Moment
By Dominique Peysson and the LEVITATE project
Can ultrasound levitation be nimble enough to create poetry? “Suspended Moment” is a ballet of two liquid drops in levitation, dancing around in a slow and fragile manner, until they finally merge. The inert matter then starts a proto-life: the drop begins to divide itself under the audience’s eyes. Behind the poetry, lies in-depth technological research. The team combines ultrasound levitation and chemistry to find the liquid that can levitate, merge and divide without damage as well as performing the perfect trajectory of the drops.
AT6Challenging the matter
Hilbert Hotel
By Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand in collaboration with the 5th Physics Institute (Stuttgart University) and the EU Quantum Flagship, with the support of Creative Industries Fund NL
How can a fully occupied hotel of infinite scale continuously accommodate an infinite influx of new guests? David Hilbert was among a contingent of mathematicians, stretching back to Zeno, who pondered such questions of infinitesimal spatial granularity. “Hilbert Hotel” is a curvilinear ion trap that electrically levitates its myriad microscopic guests. These hollow glass microspheres float along startlingly square-shaped orbits, tracing the quadrupolar electric fields that keep them airborne. When charged particles are levitated by electric fields an exotic state of matter emerges, known as a Coulomb crystal. Paving the way to quantum computers and to physics beyond the Standard Model, Coulomb crystals also offer uncharted perceptual territory. Their direct observability has led to a series of ion crystal artworks that will culminate with Atom Chasm, a laser-cooled ion trap laying bare individual atoms.
AT6Challenging the matter
Reactive Matter
By Scenocosme : Grégory Lasserre & Anaïs met den Ancxt in collaboration with the Programmable Matter Project
What if programming could turn interactive objects into organic matter? The technology of the Reactive Matter project is made of small robots: “the Blinky Blocks” based on claytronic atoms (or catoms). They are small interactive objects that can be assembled like cells in order to create large structures. They have the ability to function in interdependence and they can also communicate with each other. Based on those Blinky Blocks the artists created a sculptural and interactive artwork with organic behaviours.
AT6Challenging the matter
Biobot / Insider
by Zoran Srdić Janežič in collaboration with Kambič
Can we grow biological robots? The residency is dedicated to creating an environment for the biological robot to grow and survive. In collaboration with the biological equipment manufacturer Kambič, the team designed and produced the Insider incubator that will be both a living and exhibition environment for the Biobot. Insider will serve as the visual display of life's drama, happening within artworks incorporating live material. With the state of the research presented in this exhibition, you can discover the incubator with the growing neurons for the Biobot's body.