Upon the opening of the exhibition, I was pleased with the reception of my artworks. One key response I found with my sculptures, is the intimate connection they had with each other, through drawing on the concept of the plant as a tumour, invading its way through the brain.
Through having the Augmented Reality piece and the endoscope video of my 3D printed brain, I felt that it drew a lot or parallels from my sculpture “Invasion”. For this reason, I felt the piece could act as a standalone piece, and even develop it further to have an AR filter connected to the sculpture.
I found this piece could act as a standalone piece, due to the connection with the piece “Crystal Universe” and “Gleo-brain.
I also felt that the piece had further depth of interpretation with the light source within the 3D printed brain that signified the location of the tumour. As well as this, the jar itself illustrated the use of medicinal jars for organ preservation. Bringing these medical references provided a deeper interpretation and an interesting concept of fusing a living plant within a conservation jar, used for preserving inactive organs; such as the brain.
When considering the other artworks, I found the piece “Blooming tumour” to be a fascinating depiction of decay and disease through the process of mould growth. However, from a curatorial perspective, it may prove problematic due to the effect of mould on visitors that were asthmatic.
I found that this piece may serve as a possible hazard, and a difficulty to conserve and display to the public. Particularly in a long-standing exhibition, over many days.
Through exploring the realm of bio-art and living organisms, this brought about new conservation queries and reflections. As I was dealing with plants, the environment played a key role in conserving and encouraging growth.
Due to the lack of windows and ventilation within the space, this may have been problematic for the plants growth, due to their need for sunlight.
However, as this exhibition was only for a day it did not pose many issues. However, it did draw my attention to crucial things to consider when displaying bio-art pieces.
When considering the role of lighting, this became a crucial curatorial aspect, particularly with the piece, “Angiogenesis”. I found playing with the light through using coloured filters, helped to add another layer of intrigue and interpretation. Through representing the colours of the Gleolan solution (pink and violet), it helped to convey the use of imaging dyes within brain tumour surgery.
I chose to use the coloured lights on this particular piece, due to the light sources that resided in my other two sculptures “Blooming tumour” from the light box and “Invasions” from the LED light within the brain.
Once staging all the elements of the exhibition, I wanted to capture my work digitally, to allow a further degree of accessibility. I chose to 3D scan the room with the help of 3D artist Mark Roughley, who was familiar with digital imaging. We experimented using the Matterport scanner and even his I phone 12, 3D scanner.
Overall, we found the 3D scanner within the I phone 12 produced a better image that was workable. As the space was slightly large, it meant that it took a great deal of processing power. For this reason, the Matterport scanner struggled with processing a space with a low file size. Therefore, we had to compromise slightly on quality, in order to get a workable 3D scan that I could edit and incorporate annotations to aid in the visitors’ experience.
Overall, I was extremely pleased with the outcome of this exhibition. I found the curation of my pieces, enabled visitors to work around the sculptures and become fully immersed, through the role of augmented reality and the soundscape provided with the poetry reading.
In the future, I hope to exhibit my work to medical and art institutions, that would allow a larger public interface, in order to get more feedback and response from my pieces.
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