"Our futures": Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and the impact of art on the future -
20 Minutes
Once a month, in its Interview Futur,
20 Minutes
interviews artists, researchers and explorers to gather their visions of the future.
This year, British artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg will exhibit at the Eden Project (Cornwall) a vibrant floral work of art created using emerging technologies.
The work will take a look at the world from the point of view of pollinating insects and plants.
Art must help build the future and, she hopes, better futures.
How can art have an impact on the future?
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg offers a reflection on the world and our ways of seeing nature through her permanent work of art for the Eden Project, an environmental complex that recreates climates, located in Cornwall (Great Britain).
Even when this British artist is working on nature, new technologies are never far away.
She imagined a dynamic floral work designed using an algorithm for a whole new audience: pollinating insects.
It is not intended for humans, but for browsers, whose population is constantly decreasing.
How to free oneself from human bias and envision a future world for all living beings?
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg answers all of these questions and more.
Can you say more about your work planned for the Eden Project?
Originally, I was commissioned for a sculpture.
Instead, I came up with a work that would take the project beyond the confines of Eden Project.
I wanted to create a work, not about pollinating insects, but for pollinators.
In recent years, I have worked a lot on digital works of art, displayed on screens, and I was curious to see if it was possible to imagine a digital but essentially floral work.
The idea is to create an algorithm that designs gardens optimized for pollinating insects.
And that begs the question: can we free ourselves from human bias?
We like gardens to have a particular aesthetic or scent instead of developing gardens for their consumers, namely foragers.
And of course, the bugs are on the decline.
The overall population has declined by 25% since 1990.
How do you create a work of art from an insect's point of view and how do they see the world?
That was the starting point: what will pollinators see?
They see the world differently from humans.
Bees see another range of colors, they see ultraviolet, like butterflies.
Pollinators are attracted to certain flowers, colors and shapes.
Tubular flowers like digitalis are suitable for bees with long tongues, but not for other insects that cannot reach the pollen.
Other differences are very interesting.
Humans can see a field of flowers while a bee, located more than 14 centimeters away, sees only a blurry spot.
She does not distinguish the flowers as we would be able to.
But when she flies, even quickly, she can see the flowers very clearly, whereas to our eyes it would be blurry.
These are completely different ways of perceiving at a distance.
You can see a garden in a completely different way, freeing yourself from the human prism.
“For me, it was important to understand how to address the work of art to an audience that is not human.
Or more than human ”
How exactly does the algorithm work?
The algorithm generates a planting diagram from a database of plants.
We sort out which plants are suitable for certain gardens, certain types of soil or exposure to light.
And from these elements, the algorithm organizes and optimizes according to flowering.
He chooses the right flower for a particular pollinator.
For example, bees memorize the location of flowers.
They can visit 10,000 flowers during the day, until they find the shortest path between these flowers, and return the next day.
For her, it is important to save as many seconds as possible.
The algorithm maximizes empathy, so as to encourage insect diversity.
We are targeting 12 different groups and species.
Some of them are very specific like honey bees, long tongue bees, solitary bees… We will then put the algorithm online to allow users to choose their garden and generate their diagram.
The idea is to create artistic works for pollinators all over the world.
Is the idea behind preventing their decline?
We are not looking to solve the pollinator crisis.
The idea is to use the artwork as a lever to create more spaces for pollinators, but also to talk about the emergency.
And for me, it was important to understand how to address the work of art to an audience that is not human.
Or more than human.
What does it mean to create a work of art for other species?
We think a lot about sustainability, but is it possible to create for other species and not just from the point of view of what it will bring us?
Is it possible to think outside the human interest?
"The idea of replicating colonialism on another planet is a terrible idea"
Do you think art can help shape a better future?
I think we can ask ourselves a lot of questions about what a better future is.
It is a lever like others to challenge the policies that govern us, social standards.
What is exceptional about the practice of art is being able to ask questions and find ways to challenge the status quo.
Rather than wondering if it makes for a better future, for me the question is: what is a better future and for whom is it?
My idea of a better future is deeply rooted in creating a welcoming environment for humans and other living species that we tend to dominate, exterminate and exploit.
You worked on the theme of Mars, a theme that seems to be an opportunity for you to take a critical look at humanity.
What did you think of Perseverance?
The exploration of Mars is extraordinary.
Being able to see the landscapes of other planets and understand another world is absolutely amazing.
But that doesn't mean it's a step towards colonizing another planet.
The story that is sold by some, like Elon Musk, that we should and would like to colonize Mars is misleading.
It is a terrible place for the human body and for other forms of life.
The idea of replicating colonialism on another planet is also a terrible idea.
I find it astonishing to use the word colonialism when this word is, and rightly so, more and more contested.
The idea that all of a sudden there is no concern of going to colonize a place, without asking if there is indigenous life on Mars is deeply problematic.
My work,
Wilding of Mars
, was part of the
Moving on Mars
exhibition
at the Design Museum in London.
I said that I didn't want to create a work around a move to Mars and the exhibition curator allowed me to come up with something critical but optimistic.
I proposed this work which considers colonization - always violent - by plants.
And humans never go there.
What is your idea of the world that awaits us?
I think it will be very close to today's one.
A world where people and the environment are exploited.
With regard to the planet, Western societies have so far proved that they are very poor students.
They exploit other species and civilizations.
Other groups of people around the world have lived and are living in harmony with nature so perhaps we can be optimistic.
But personally, I imagine that the world of tomorrow will be very close to that of today, and worse.
For you, the future will be a collapsology atmosphere or a transhumanist atmosphere?
It will probably be a mixture of the two.
It depends on how you define transhumanism.
Is it the increase in surveillance, in the relationship between our body and digital life, or is it rather the extreme version which involves downloading our brains onto servers?
It would be a really good way to reduce the human population if you think about it.
I think there will be an increase in technology but, again, it will be used to exploit and not in a way that benefits us.
And the trend towards collapse could increase too, but not necessarily collapse as such.
The pressure on the populations will increase due to migration, due to climate change or totalitarianism.
The constraints on the environment will also increase.
We're at a complicated moment in history and I'm not sure we're making the right choices.
Joyful!
Hopefully, some work on pollinators will help make a difference (laughs).
"Much of my work is based on the imaginations of better futures and how we can reach for that imaginary"
Can you react to this quote from Picasso: “In art, there is neither past nor future.
Art that is not in the present will never be.
"
For me, a good art, the one that stimulates me, is the one that changes my way of seeing the world.
It has an action on the present whether it is an aesthetic response, surprisingly changed emotions, or something more cerebral.
The intention is to create a work that changes the course of the present.
Many of my works are placed in the future or in a parallel world which does not necessarily have a temporality.
The idea is to have an effect on what we do today.
Hopefully, good art lives on in the present.
I am not saying that I am Picasso, however!
Margaret Atwood said: “As soon as a language is conjugated in the past and the future, you are going to say: Where do we come from and what happens next?
The ability to remember the past helps us shape the future ”(English quote translation).
Humans are probably the only creature that can imagine the future.
We cannot prove it.
There is something very powerful about the existence of the future and the past, it is also a Western way of looking at time.
What is behind us and what is in front of us?
I am particularly interested in how the past controls the future.
Much of my work relies on the imaginations of better futures and how we can reach for that imagination.
There are also very powerful golden ages.
Imagine pasts that have an effect on the way we behave.
“Make america great again” is a good example.
This fictitious past animates the present and the future.
What Margaret Atwood says is a nice way to explain that we never live in the present.
Find the Future (s) section here
What does this image of Mars mean to you?
From the work Wilding of Mars by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg - Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
She is from
Wilding of Mars
.
In this image, there are some of the pioneering forms of life that we have selected to create an ecological simulation.
Each is a representation of living species on Earth.
These plants grew in the computer, each one is growing slowly, we see it growing fast because we show a million years go by in the space of an hour.
One of the challenges is how to create that human feeling of exploring this world that is not ours.
The angles of the camera are chosen so as to create discomfort or a difficulty in apprehending this space.
It is a test to create an immersive experience of nature.
Basically it's a postcard from Mars!
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