Biomodd: A Living Game Computer As Social Sculpture
A project by Angelo Vermeulen, residency artist at the Aesthetic Technologies Lab
Biomodd is a social and interactive art project that brings together ecology, game culture and installation art. The work tries to visualise and rework the intricate relation of organic life, technology and consumption. Inspired by the case modding scene, a monumental custom computer is built as a form of expanded sculpture. Inside the case, excess heat of overclocked processors is recycled by an elaborate living ecosystem. The computer hardware is used as server for a new computer game. The objective of this game is to bring some of the main themes of Biomodd into an imaginative multiplayer game experience.
Both the computer structure and the game are developed with a group of biology, game and art enthusiasts. Furthermore, exhibition visitors can also actively modify the piece: through playing they generate heat and hence influence the interior ecosystem.
Biomodd is not a project with a classic art object-oriented focus. It is rather conceived as a nomadic project where each local version will have its own temporary character. Only parts of previous versions are integrated in each new structure. The travelling, social and evolving nature of the project is essential.
The first Biomodd version is created during an artist residency at the Aesthetic Technologies Lab in Athens, Ohio from September 2007 to January 2008. Collaborations are currently set up with OU departments of game design, electronic and computer engineering, telecommunications and biology. The objective is to compile an interdisciplinary team of 15-20 students. Filmmaker Morgan Riles will film a documentary of the project's progression.
Figure 1. Left: artist's impression of the symbiotic convergence of electronics and organic life in Biomodd. Right: pre-paratory study for the Biomodd multiplayer game. The creatures are based on old microscopic drawings by renowned limnologist Carl Wesenberg-Lund.
Figure 3. Diagram illustrating the potential interaction between the enclosed living ecosystem and the virtual world of the multiplayer game. The upper square represents the central computer system, the smaller lower squares individual terminals where players can join game sessions. The status of the ecosystem could be measured by sensors and translated into a virtual entity (blue pathway) thus creating a "superorganism" that lives in two realms, the real and the virtual. The ecosystem could also be manipulated from within the game through robotics (red pathway).
Figure 4. Blue Shift [LOG. 1], 2005, bio art installation with waterfleas, fish and an interactive lighting system. Through natural selection visitors induce a microevolution of the light-responsive behaviour of the waterflea populations. In past installations like these, I have mainly focused on the convergence of installation art, ecology and technology. In Biomodd I connect this approach to computer game culture.
For a more detailed description see the interview on www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009350.php
