Matt Kenyon: Art and Artificial Life in Madrid
Matt Kenyon’s work featured at the first major international retrospective of Art and Artificial Life award winners in Madrid Spain. Kenyon will be exhibiting a new version of SPORE that he has built since joining A&D. This new version of SPORE is powered in part by microbial fuel cells. SPORE is a self-sustaining ecosystem for a rubber tree plant purchased at Home Depot. In this project, Home Depot is responsible for the plant in two ways: first, an unconditional guarantee to replace any plant they sell, for up to one year; second through an implied cybernetic contract. This second responsibility is the creative content for the work, where the economic health of Home Depot is transitioned through a series of physical computing techniques to a mechanism for controlling the watering of the rubber tree. The exhibition opens May 8th VIDA retrospective exhibition will coincide with the reopening of the Fundación Telefónica new cultural centre in the Telefónica´s historic headquarters. Other artists included in the exhibition include: Eduardo Kac, Ken Rinaldo, Philip Beesley and Rafael Lozano-hemmer.
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