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Cryptographic Beings Enstalasyon Atistik by Michael Sedbon

Cryptographic Beings Enstalasyon Atistik by Michael Sedbon is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2023 A' Design Award Ajan in Enstalasyon Competition Category.


AjanEnstalasyon· 2023

Cryptographic Beings Enstalasyon Atistik

by Michael Sedbon

Client: Michael Sedbon

A' Design Award Ajan Winner in Enstalasyon Category

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Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #146928

Colors

The Design

About Cryptographic Beings Enstalasyon Atistik

Cryptographic Beings se yon enstalasyon atistik ki estoke done dijital nan alg vivan. Travay la konpoze de trant bit vejetal, chak youn se yon veso an vè ki kenbe alg filamante. Fotosentèz pwodui vezikil gaz, kidonk alg yo flote nan limyè epi yo desann nan fènwa. Chak eta flote oswa desann reprezante yon zewo oswa yon en dijital, epi enstalasyon an kapab estoke yon mo senk lèt. Bra robotik motorize kontwole limyè ki rive sou chak veso, epi yon detektè koulè fèt espesyalman li chak eta. Machin nan fonksyone poukont li pandan plizyè mwa pandan yon egzibisyon.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award Ajan

Cryptographic Beings Enstalasyon Atistik se yon ganyan A' Design Award Ajan, yon rekonesans ki gen yon prestij enmans yo bay design nivo siperyè, bèl anpil e enpresyonan. Ganyan Ajan yo se travay ki trè briyan e ki trè kreyatif ki montre ekspètiz, talan ak finès designer yo. Yo atann Cryptographic Beings Enstalasyon Atistik pou se yon bèl travay modèl, remakab nan pwofesyonalis e ki gen gwo inovasyon. Design sa a ki ganyen A' Design Award Ajan se yon envansyon trè remakab, admire ki pote benefis e ki pouse limit atizay, syans, design ak teknoloji. Cryptographic Beings Enstalasyon Atistik se yon kreyasyon anpil moun jalou ki reveye dezi, ki pote santiman pozitif e ki limen sipriz ak mèvèy.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties
Cryptographic Beings is a technological proposal that leverages our ability to control and abstract biology to perform digital information storage.

Marimos are large spherical colonies of algea.

Photosynthetic activity produces gas vesicles visible to the naked eye
This property allows them to float when exposed to light and sink in the dark

This property is used to store digital data: The floating or sinking state representing digital 0s or 1s
This robotic setup is capable of storing a 5 letter word
Dimensions & Packaging
Width : 60 cm
height : 300 cm
Depth : 60 cm
Weight : 300 Kg
Tags
Artificial Living Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Bio-Hybrid Computers, Living Machines, New Media Art, Robotic
Production Technology
This work was developed as part of an ongoing research project on bio-hybrid computation exploring the possible morpho-space of computing devices. Michael Sedbon questions the information-processing properties of living matter through the creation of novel technologies embed into sculptural artefacts.
This work has been developed as a functional prototype of a digital data storage device on vegetal media. It uses living algae, custom electronic and software code to store information.
Design Challenge
Cryptographic being is both a technological and an artistic proposal. The technology used to store digital information in vegetal media is a pure creation for this work. During its development, numerous technical challenges such as the design of custom sensors and engineered mechanical parts had to be overcome.
As an artistic project, it also had to communicate its (highly technical) subject in an understandable manner. Great care was placed in rendering biological processes visible.
Research
Living organisms perceive and interact with their environment through computation. Recent advances in the life sciences allow researchers and designers to envision machines of new kinds that leverage the massive and specific capacities of living matter in computing.
How would these bio-hybrid machines change our perception of nature and culture, what can be used to compute, what can be computed and what form will they take? These are the question this work approach.
Inspiration
The first part of the 20th century witnessed simultaneously the discovery of the basis of information storage in DNA and the revolutions of the modern computing era.

Since then, the fields of computer science and modern biology have co-evolved in a conceptual framework that looks at life as an information processing system and at digital computations as Intelligence.

This cultural relationship is allowing us to design new kinds of bio-hybrid computers leveraging the massive capacity of life.
Project Duration
The project was conceptualised and prototyped in summer 2021. The production occurred from September 2021 to March 2022. This work was shown at Au Dela Des Pixel, a digital art exhibition curated and organised by 36 Degres, in March 2022 in Paris.
Operation Flow
This autonomous machine consists of an array of 30 vegetal bits made of filamentous algae held in glass vessels. The control of the information flow is handled by a set of specifically developed robotic arms that control photosynthetic processes in each of the bits. The state of each bit (the digital information) is retrieved by a custom-made device based on a colour sensor.
The machine is designed to run autonomously for months throughout an exhibition.
Team Members
Michael Sedbon

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