At first glance, digital images and virtual worlds – as produced by computational processes – are seen as separate from our physical world. We tend to see the man-made, or artificial, as divided from the natural world. In reality, virtual systems are inextricably linked to a material origin of computers, data, servers, infrastructure and the energy they require. There is a constant interaction between the physical world and digital systems for us to be able to create new images and worlds. This can be seen as a hybrid ecosystem.
The video installation Hybrid Ecosystems was created by developing an artificial intelligence trained on both natural and technological objects. The self-learning system now produces its own reimagination of what such a hybrid ecosystem could look and sound like. It mutates natural and technological forms into one fused simulation, creating an alienating new reality.
This gives rise to all sorts of fundamental questions, like: do Western people actually have a realistic worldview or is the perception of non-human entities – including machines – actually much closer to the truth? Hybrid Ecosystems explores how we can stretch our imagination so as to see a world of harmoniously interacting artificial and natural life as one single ecosystem.
FIBER 2021 exhibits an immersive audiovisual installation of the ongoing project
Sound by Alejandro Mune.
Entangled Others Studio
Entangled Others Studio was co-founded by Feileacan McCormick and Sofia Crespo in 2017. Entangled Others Studio researches and develops our entanglement with the more-than-human world. A world where diversity and inter-connectedness are nurtured and engaged.
Sofia Crespo
Sofia Crespo is an artist with a huge interest in biology-inspired technologies. One of her main focuses is the way organic life uses artificial mechanisms to simulate itself and evolve, implying the idea that technologies are a biased product of the organic life that created them and not a completely separate object. Crespo has exhibited her work at many events including Hub.Berlin Digital Arts Lab x Retune, Future Intelligence / Tank Museum (Shanghai), Eufònic Urbà (Barcelona) and Zero Emissions by 2099 (Rotterdam).
Feileacan McCormick
Feileacan McCormick is a Norwegian artist and researcher whose practice meditates on ecology, nature & generative arts, with a focus on giving the non-human new forms of presence & life in digital space.