ATLAS in silico - Saturday

ATLAS in Silico

(San Diego, CA)

Like "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" for the scientific set, "ATLAS in silico" is a beautiful, interactive 3D experience that uses a participant's movement to trigger mesmerizing, life-size audiovisual effects inspired by the Global Ocean Survey.

About the Performance

For anyone who has even given some thought about the origin of nature or the unity of life, "ATLAS in Silico" offers an ethereal and dreamlike immersive 3D environment, wherein you can explore life-size renderings of the Global Ocean Survey -- a recent pioneering voyage of discovery circumnavigating the Earth's oceans, the results of which give us a new picture of life on Earth. The room-size installation is playful and yet meaningful for people of all ages: Participants may simply observe, or individuals can step forward and use their own movements to animate and maneuver the colorful 3D images and audio. The captivating onscreen images are created by a unique process that combines genetic information from microorganisms collected by the Global Ocean Survey with environmental and social data from the geographical locations in which the organisms were found, to create a human context for this major scientific breakthrough. In parallel to this oceanic journey that was inspired by 19th Century global circumnavigations of the H.M.S Challenger and H.M.S. Beagle, the aesthetics of this artwork are grounded in history and in our future. They embody the visual culture and relationship that existed between art and science in the 19th Century, and the renewal of this relationship in the 21st Century via emerging digital technologies. "ATLAS in silico" represents an expansive research and production collaboration bridging art, science, and perception, to reflect on fascinating natural wonders of the world. Artists and researchers from the University of California at San Diego will be present at Ingenuity to discuss this multifaceted collaborative work.

About the Creators

"ATLAS in silico" is the result of a vibrant collaboration between artists and scientists spanning new media, computer science, metagenomics, biology, and engineering. Collaborators include Ruth G. West, Todd Margolis, Iman Mostafavi, JP Lewis, Joachim Gossman, Ben Hackbarth, Alex S. Horn, Sam Fernald, Jurgen Schulze, Weizhong Li, Trevor Henthorn, Rajvikram Singh, Javier I. Girardo, and Toshiro Yamada.

The bios for all members of this multi-faceted team are available at: www.atlasinsilico.net/collaboration.html.

Additionally, the project has received generous sponsorship from academic and industry sponsors ranging from firms such as Da-Lite Screen Company (projection screens), Active Motif/TimeLogic (biotech) to Meyer Sound (world-class audio) to university supporters such as CAMERA (metagnomics cyberinfrastcuture) to UCSD's Center for Research in Computing and the Arts. For a full list of sponsors, please visit: http://www.atlasinsilico.net/sponsors.html.

Learn more about the Global Ocean Survey at: http://www.jcvi.org/cms/research/projects/gos/overview and http://camera.calit2.net/.