In a world where computer systems have the capacity to learn and resemble living systems, where we can clone our own meat and grow our own clothes, what then differentiates the organic from the artificial and the living from the dead? - Vivian Xu
Vivian Xu refined a technique for dispersing charges through an E. coli growth medium, causing the bacteria to grow in the pattern of electrical waves. A bio-artist from Bejing, she created these beautiful living devices at Genspace’s lab as part of her thesis project at Parson’s Design and Technology MFA program.
In the tradition of scientists and DIYers alike, Vivian provided extensive documentation, giving her project real methodological and theoretical rigor. Cant wait to see where she takes her art/science next.
Devices from Jacques de Vaucanson’s Mechanical Duck, 1739 (image below)—a mechanism that could flap, squawk, even eat and poop like a duck—to modern bio-memetic robots and computer learning algorithms blur the lines between the organic and technological. Xu blurs them one step further.
Bacteria and other organisms like ants are known to have an unexplained affinity for electrical fields. She uses this scientific mystery as a point of departure for her art. Vivian’s results are, to say the least, intricately visually stunning.
