Asia-Europe Cultural Festival: 2024 | Biomodd [TT015]

An interactive, community-engaged installation that merges art, nature and technology.

Art Installation 28 - 31 August 2024 | Community workshop 1 September, 11:00 AM | Vernissage event 1 - 7 September 2024 | Exhibition MUSE Science Museum, Trento, Italy Countries: Philippines, United Kingdom

Biomodd is a collaborative community-engaged art project that has been running since 2007, with over two dozen iterations. The project is seeking new relationships between nature and technology across different cultures around the world, thanks to the creation of hybrid interactive art installations developed on-site with local communities. Through this grassroots approach and collaboration of culturally diverse teams, Biomodd proposes not only a visual artistic experience but also a vision of a co-created future.

For this project, e-waste is a primary resource where discarded computers are collected, and participants learn to dismantle them. Functioning computers are then built out of the salvaged electronic components, and are assembled into a local network connected to the internet. The Waste heat from upcycled computers provides heat that drives internal microclimates and encourages the growth of algae, plants and other organisms. Sensors and robotics allow for more elaborate interactions between computers and biology.  

Sensor data from the living organisms feeds into a customised multiplayer computer game thematically tied to the project’s concepts. These games, based on existing open-source games or developed from the ground up by local team members, involve exhibition visitors, heat up electronic components, and help boost the growth of the internal ecosystems. Such radical interdependencies echo throughout the project: in the community building of Biomodd; among the game participants; and in the physical installation components, like the relationship between hot microprocessors and living chloroplasts. 

Over a four-day workshop, participating citizens will be invited to co-create an experimental system in which recycled computers and living ecosystems coexist and mutually reinforce one another. During the workshop days, the audience is invited to witness the process and engage in critical conversations about our ideas on ecology, progress and our technological future.  

The resulting interactive artwork will be exhibited in the galleries and the audience will be able to play with the custom-built computer games running on the computers receiving sensor data feeds from the living organisms.

Schedule: 

Concept: SEADS (Space Ecologies Art and Design) 

Artists: Amy Holt and Diego Maranan 

In collaboration with: MUSE Science Museum of Trento 

Click HERE or scan the QR below to view museum opening hours and book tickets at MUSE. 

The event is part of the Asia-Europe Cultural Festival 2024, organised by ASEF with the financial support of the European Union. For the full programme, CLICK HERE.