Photolysis

2022

Youyang Hu, Chiaochi Chou

electronic part, rock, plant, glass, lightbox, mirror, optical fiber, culture medium, electroretinogram system

Photolysis is a hybrid installation consisting of multiple dynamic phototrophic organisms. Within the frame of this piece of artwork, human beings, plankton, and vegetation interact with each other by repetitively encrypting and decrypting light information based on their respective phototrophic abilities and algorithmic logic, and a cyclic system is hence formed. By configuring the varying irritabilities of different species and using light as a vehicle to bridge heterogeneous organisms, this work encapsulates and allows scrutiny of the physical universe from a microbiological perspective, reexamining the approach that human beings make observations and responses.

In addition to being comprised of photons charged with dynamic energy, light also carries a piece of spectral information intercepted from the electromagnetic spectrum, which bears resemblance to a string of code. The entire operation of the art installation is propelled by a light ray of the full spectrum; such a ray of light is successively translated by the potential spectrum evoked by human visuals as well as the biological action spectrum of euglena. Based on the translated information, the electronically controlled lightbox generates a light ray of a specific spectrum and projects it to the other side of the central boulder by using the optical fiber as a channel. The originally full-spectrum light along with the biologically translated light triggers the plants to disparately develop tropisms, forming different landscapes on both sides of the central boulder and sparking the imagination of a multi-faceted world.