ARS Eletronica future lab is an atelier and laboratory with the aims of research and development of areas of science/technology, art and society. They use art as a medium of expression to simplify the transition of social or scientific information, or as they say on their website, “food for thought”, this sector is more aimed at education and younger generation with the pretext of art to promote innovation. They are transdisciplinary where they bring together teams with artists, scientists, thinkers, sociologists to work on projects. Helping partner organizations that are working on innovative technology, to review and solidify the collaboration between research and development, artistic output and product enhancements. They also focus a lot on the importance of society that forms a future, that individuals are members of society. With the intent to find ways to motivate, empower and inspire.
Inside their ARS lab there are various topics in which they subdivide different areas of their work, which they believe are important for the future. For this research id like to particularly focus on the Arts and Science topic.
Art is a universal medium of communication, regardless of where you come from, or where who you are, art can always leave an image. Art has the strength to be able to open up new perspectives and simplify thematically complicated environments. Advanced science and technology have a lot of problems of communication, because they have in fact highly complex environments. Especially when science tries to reach a broader audience or even to the younger generation.
In order aid this process for Science and technology, Ars wants to focus on being able to communicate the social importance and meaning. Turning scientific facts into artistic expression, art can generate curiosity and awareness. Using art to communicate what Ars Eletronica Futurelab. An example of one of their projects in this field is the Fifty sisters project.
Fifty sisters, A project by Jon MacCormack talk about a sequence of 50 1mx1m images of plant forms that are computer made. Made of algorithmically “grown” from computer code. Each plant-like form is derived and made up of the early primitive look the logos from oil companies. These maps were generated using something called “computer genes” which is inspired on how genetics works, basically these flowers were created through computer generated evolution to create procedurally generated pre-historic flowers that go through mutation and selection.
This project does not only show the limits of how technology and programming can almost imitate the processes of nature like genetics, but also comes with a strong message for today’s times. With the global temperature rising and one of the leading reasons is the pollution of the oil drilling and the negative impact of oil spills. This work is a critique to the oil industry shaping our society and destroying our planet, fossil fuels began as plants that over millions of years were transformed due to geological processes into coal and oil. Basically, the oil companies now own and monopolize these pre-historic plants, making these plants only made of their logo.
What ARS Electronica futurelab is q very innovative and forward-thinking way to bring different topics and areas together to work in symbiosis. The Multi-disciplinary aspect to research and development can really help with enrichening knowledge and broadening the communication of science and the importance of working all together. The example of how Jon MacCormack was able to showcase technology and a social critique into a piece of art made the message a lot stronger.
Samuel WorkWeek blog - Research 