Microworld themes
Creativity
Microworld supports intuitive and multi-user interaction. The audience has the agency to reshape the entire exhibition. Dwell time stretches out as users learn how to support their own creatures by manipulating the digital environment.
Artificial Life
A branch of Computer Science related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) which uses software to simulate and understand biological systems. By setting up simple pixel-based rules and pressing PLAY and seeing what happens, programmers can explore living systems – not life as it is but “life as it could be”.
Biophilia
The great biologist E.O. Wilson used this term to describe the intuitive love that living creatures (including humans) have for the natural world. By simulating the multiple rhythms of nature, Microworld becomes a multi-layered experience, which many people find calming. Can digital nature inspire love too?
Cascades
Do a cartwheel and watch as hundreds of your silhouettes cartwheel across the huge screen. In Microworlds small actions can lead to avalanches of reactions spreading from one screen to another. Having this much agency over an exhibition can be exciting and empowering.
Play
There are no rules in Microworld, you can interact with the pieces in any way you want; throw a shape, do a dance, create crazy selfies, engage in creature conversations. The space is yours to explore. Open Play is a great way to discover the world and its potentials. Microworld is a great space to play and to watch others playing.
Future Evolutions
Microworld creatures are inspired by real-world organisms with strange and remarkable life-cycles and strategies for survival, including colony creatures, parasites and shape-shifters. What can humans learn from them?
Wonderment
Microworlds encourage the contemplation of interlocking processes based on the rhythms of life. They can be both stimulating and relaxing. Be immersed in the 'soft fascinations' of digital nature.
Primary Producers
Because the audience instigates so much action we think of them as the primary producers. In nature, a primary producer is a life form which converts the energy in sunlight into organic matter. They are at the bottom of every food chain and without them nothing would survive. Similarly, without an audience, the Microworld quietens down waiting for the next set of visitors.
Ecosystems
Microworld creatures sense their environments and change their environments. The creatures, the computers, the sensors, projectors, electricity and people are all part of a system, where everything is connected. Microworlds are digital ecosystems which draw inspiration from nature.
Alien Life
How do you communicate with an alien creature? What senses and actions will you use? How will it respond? Interactive art is a great way to explore these questions. Microworlds are filled with fantastical creatures inspired by Science Fiction and Science Fact.
Biodiversity
Microworld is filled with many creatures, not just the headline stars, but also smaller secondary creatures which populate the gaps in between them, tidying things up when needed. The audience can create additional species and see how these affect the balance of activity. Microworld presents a rich complex ecosystem which is sustained by the many creatures which live there.
Microscopic Life
Many of the creatures in Microworlds are inspired by microorganisms. It is amazing how these tiny creatures with rudimentary brains behave and build living societies.
"Entering into the Microworld and watching as my every action was reflected in the movements and colors of the exhibit made me think of how each of our actions creates a cause-and-effect response in the smaller cellular world and how our actions as species create direct reactions to the planet."
- Mike Andrelczyk, Journalist, Entertainment Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. Microworld Millersville 2020
OPEN YOUR DOORS TO A THOUGHT-PROVOKING MICROWORLD
Contact Jack Addis to find out how. jack@lumenstudios.art +44(0)7784831854
Jack Addis, Exhibitions Director at Lumen Studios, has been working with Genetic Moo since 2015. He builds Microworlds around the world.
LUMEN ART PROJECTS
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