Garden of the Elixir Pill

The emergence of elements, whether in systems theory, science or natural world, is a phenomenon in which large entities or complex systems arise from the process of interaction and self-organisation of smaller, simpler elements. Examples of such structures are the living systems of ant colonies or bird flocks, but they also include technological structures of individual elements having a certain amount of freedom of action, such as city traffic or the organisational phenomena in computer simulations and cellular automata that apply the concept of Boids, Swarm Intelligence (SI) and Cellular robotic systems.

The installation employs artificial units in cosmogonic maps in order to create an outlook of the past, present, and future constructions of the world. Inspired by the notion of frequencies that affect the elements in cosmos, three instances of bots generate frequencies that slowly fluctuate from two predetermined frequency points using pseudo-random algorithms and, by doing so, they gently affect the silica sand placed beneath them. The smaller bots, whose electronic circuits are partially made from the material they crawl on, the silica sand, move by the means of vibration and leave trail marks in the sand. The three bigger ones, which generate frequency vibrations, rearrange the sand underneath by gently emitting their own vibrations.

The third level of the installation, the projected stage where virtual instances of bots exist, is the stage of simulation. Here, they act or appear in a remediating role. They try to explain the workings of the universe to themselves and to us, the audience. Bots are regenerating important philosophical texts using the Markov Chain algorithm, continuously displaying different, reformed statements. The algorithm calculates probabilities of appearances of particular words from the original text or, more precisely, the appearance of words after the N word (the number for N chosen in this work is 2). It then generates new text by starting from random words from the original text and ending when it calculates that it has reached the end of a sentence. This action opens many questions regarding the creation of artificial agents capable of processing and displaying meaningful content that goes beyond mere calculations and statistical outcomes.

Bots within the virtual application generate the text based on the database consisting of the following seminal works: Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy; Marcus Aurelius: Meditations; Seneca: Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency; Aristotle:The Poetics; Aristotle:The Politics; Anne Conway: The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy;

About the first iteration and detailed description
Part of the installation devoted to bots is presented in the form of a cognitive map for understanding the state of things, for understanding our lifeworld of “ecotechnics”, to use Jean-Luc Nancy’s term. The Bots is a mix of Zen garden, sandbox, robot combat, and social involvement of non-human and human agents. Bots and the environment make up a small universe inspired by Chinese “scholar’s gardens” and Zen gardens. Animism, widely present in eastern mythologies and popular cultures, offers an alternative understanding of artificial intelligence agents as autonomous beings and potential carriers of assigned consciousness. They try to explain the workings of the universe to themselves and to us, the audience, as well as to decipher the philosophical book Tao Te Ching, which has had numerous interpretations and contextualisations throughout history. Bots are regenerating Tao Te Ching using Markov Chain algorithm, continuously displaying different, reformed statements. In one of the iterations, the installation additionally had glass capsules with packed substances (quicksilver, active charcoal, epsom salt, minerals) and the moving mountain-like element.

The object resembling a tree has a vertical stream for the creation of medicament - the Pharmakon. It passed drops of rainwater from one vessel to a pre-made mixture of clay and Ganoderma Lucidum powder, and to a sea sponge placed at the bottom. During the second installment of this work, in addition to the vertical process that this time included berries from the European Black Nightshade plant, the installation had the vertical line of glass vessels hanging from branches attached to the tree. The vessels included rainwater and minerals Cinnabar and Realgar, Boswellia sacra essential oil, and Lead. These elements refer to historical examples of medicaments, like Spongia Somnifera as the sponge used to deliver analgesic and anesthetic medication in the past, while others were widely used in cultures all over the world for disinfection (Boswellia), protection and eventually minor health benefits (Cinnabarit), and purification rituals. The obvious potential of some of these elements to become poison relates to many properties of natural elements and medication, but it is the dose itself that determines the effectiveness of a substance. All of the elements used in this specific setting are employed to help us think about our complex entanglement with nature.

Part of the installation named Station is meant to bring forth the elements used in the field while collecting particular substances. It contains the objects called Collectors, and it also expands on particular elements of other installations in the exhibition. Placed inside, the Collectors and other related objects serve to explain the details of the overall project. The Collectors as “objects-to-think-with” help us negotiate our relationship with nature, its many streams and fluxes, and enable us to think about measuring and tracking ourselves and our environment, as well as getting into homeostatic balances with our environment. The first instalment showed many elements used in the making of the installation: supplements, herbal extracts, vials and vessels for extractions, and other smaller equipment. The second presentation included two examples of the Collectors objects – the glass vials inserted in the ground of a field and the glass bowls hanging from the branches of trees, both collecting rainwater for the installations. Prior to the second presentation, three actions were executed involving the attachment of glass collectors to kites in order to collect aerosol particles and water. The glass vials with steel frames, inspired by the shape of the Typha plant, were placed in the gallery inside the two containers containing three types of plants (Arundo Donax, Typha, and Miscanthus sinensis). Arundo Donax and Typha were harvested from one of the locations where Collectors were placed to gather water samples. Inside the vials, I made an open process of creating a (philosophical) medicament by inserting rods for measuring conductivity of electricity into the mixture of Ethanol, distilled water, and a piece of Arundo Donax reed together with a seed of Cannabis Sativa acquired in a regular health food store. The process was sonified.