Marc Lee installations at FutureFantastic Festival

CAON – Control and Optimize Nature. By Marc Lee and Shervin Saremi. Installation view.

Marc Lee uses contemporary art as a vehicle to continuously redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. He is experimenting with information and communication technologies and within his contemporary art practice, he reflects critically creative, cultural, social, ecological and political aspects. In this context he is creating network-oriented interactive art projects: interactive installations, media art, internet art, performance art, video art, augmented reality (AR) art, virtual reality (VR) art and mobile art apps.

Two installations by Marc Lee will be showcased at the FutureFantastic Festival in Bengaluru.

Used to Be My Home Too

A real-time cartographical experiment that reflects our rich biodiversity alongside the continuous extinction of various species.

Are we living in a globalized world that is becoming more and more homogeneous? Animal fungi and plant species are continuously decreasing. In the distant future, will only domesticated species survive? What impact does this homogenization process have on our lives and our environment? Used To Be My Home Too reflects on how humans have become biodiverse agents interacting with the most fundamental processes of the earth, our rich biodiversity, and how we are continually losing species.

In this experiment, using Google Earth audiences can fly to the exact locations, where animal, fungi and plant observations are being photographed at this very moment and sent to iNaturalist.org — a social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. In addition, this artwork maps taxonomically similar species that occurred in the same country but became extinct within the last 30 years, automatically added in real time via the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species — RedList.org.

CAON — Control and Optimize Nature
by Marc Lee and Shervin Saremi (Iran)

Scientists are turning to genetic engineering, synthetic biology, and machine learning to tackle global warming and species extinction. CAON has created a speculative ecosystem where artificial intelligence is used to create and optimise synthetic species to thrive in an increasingly hostile environment. You are invited to observe the changing ecosystem as you fly with and even help these synthetic creatures adapt to their changing surroundings via the perspective of an AI simulator. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the possibilities of a future where technology can help us mitigate the effects of climate change and species loss.