Climate change is in the news but science and art go hand in hand with sustainability at the Meru Art*Science Research Program, an interdisciplinary project that will take place in Bergamo, Italy, during the 17th Festival BergamoScienza.
For the occasion arist Nick Laessing, whose practice focuses on researches revolving around art, technology and the eco-crisis, will bring his Life Systems installations and projects at the Bergamo-based Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery - GAMeC), developing for the occasion also a series of objects powered by alternative energies with local high school students.
A researcher at the Slade School of Art and The Electrochemical Innovation Laboratory, University College London, Laessing creates artworks moving from speculative technologies.
Among his most famous pieces there is the "Plant Orbit": the latter was inspired by the food scarcity and is based on researches carried out in the '70s by the NASA to investigate the possibility of growing plant food in extra-terrestrial environments. The researches discovered that plant growth accelerates in anti-gravity conditions. The project was discarded by NASA and later appropriated by marijuana growers to maximise production for indoor cultivation.
Laessing created the piece with the advice from the marijuana growing community and hydroponics experts. "Plant Orbiter" tests the theory via an automated rotating system for food production: seeds are planted in a propagator and, once germinated, the seedlings are transplanted into the slowly rotating wheel that completes an orbit every hour around lamps reproducing the frequency of sunlight. There's a dichotomy in this project between utopia and dystopia: Laessing invites visitors to pick the products of the machine once they are ready, but he also prompts them to think about the possibility of the machine malfunctioning, becoming unable to produce anything and therefore leaving people to starve.
Laessing's Life Systems installations and projects will be at Bergamo's Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Modern and Contemporary Art gallery - GAMeC) from 7th to 20th October.
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