2021/2022
data driven computer generated animations
additional Python programming by Noya Kohavi
single-channel projections
4k video, no sound
3 minutes each (loops)
Syndemic Sublime reflects on interspecies entanglements in the contemporary biotechnological landscape with a mesmerizing moving tableau constructed from molecular protein models. The 3D animation, created with molecular visualization software, intertwines structures derived from the coronavirus with human and non-human species. Its generative movements, alternating between the spastic and the sublime, are driven by COVID data tracking deaths during the pandemic. Each animation has a unique starting and ending form as it slowly morphs from its biological folded form or “conformation” to its technologically distorted form. The generative quality of the process allows for unpredictable and unique transformations within each animation as the software creates unexpected visuals. The unraveling and collision of the proteins results in both jarring glitches and in soothing movements. From zoonotic diseases to transgenic vaccine development, our understanding of what it means to be “human” in the “natural world” is becoming increasingly complex. The slow, quiet animations create liminal spaces for reflection, contemplation, mourning, and wonder at the unseen molecular forces of the biological world affecting our daily lives in profound ways.
Syndemic Sublime reflects on interspecies entanglements in the contemporary biotechnological landscape with a mesmerizing moving tableau constructed from molecular protein models. The 3D animation, created with molecular visualization software, intertwines structures derived from the coronavirus with human and non-human species. Its generative movements, alternating between the spastic and the sublime, are driven by COVID data tracking deaths during the pandemic. Each animation has a unique starting and ending form as it slowly morphs from its biological folded form or “conformation” to its technologically distorted form. The generative quality of the process allows for unpredictable and unique transformations within each animation as the software creates unexpected visuals. The unraveling and collision of the proteins results in both jarring glitches and in soothing movements. From zoonotic diseases to transgenic vaccine development, our understanding of what it means to be “human” in the “natural world” is becoming increasingly complex. The slow, quiet animations create liminal spaces for reflection, contemplation, mourning, and wonder at the unseen molecular forces of the biological world affecting our daily lives in profound ways.
The models were downloaded from the Protein Data Bank (PDB), a public database of protein models. The animations, created with the molecular visualization software PyMOL, combine models of proteins from the SARS coronavirus with antibodies and cell receptors from llamas, alpacas, cats, dogs, pangolins, bats, and humans. The generative movement is created using data reported by The Centers for Disease Control tracking COVID deaths in the U.S. over the first twenty months of the pandemic to disrupt the twenty amino acid residues along the protein structures by using Python to generate PyMOL files.
Syndemic Sublime was developed in remote collaboration with scientists at biotech company Integral Molecular while “sheltering in place” for COVID-19 as part of the uCity Science Center Bioart Residency.
...In Syndemic Sublime’s computer-generated animations of SARS-CoV-2, antibodies, and cell receptors, we observe the intricate folds and features of this biotechnical (or is it technobiological?) landscape up close. Slowly spinning, delicately unfurling, the formal boundaries between an algorithm and a life blur indefinitely. When conspiracy theorists say the COVID-19 vaccines injected into us have chips in them, they only project paranoid fantasies onto what is an underlying truth: not only do we live in a world increasingly determined by computation, but computation itself is now increasingly something that is lived...
— An enemy like the future by Ian Alan Paul
...Using animations, the artist takes us to a molecular, simulated, random world that unpredictably and generatively interweaves SARS-COV-2 data and models with cells, proteins and human and non-human webs to evoke biotechnological landscapes. The generative movement comes from data banks on COVID-related deaths, giving visible form to rhythms and magnitudes that open up spaces for reflection and sorrow. The work questions the boundaries between technology, nature and society and reveals the intimacies, skeins and complexities of a world that, as the pandemic has shown us, is increasingly hybrid, variegated and (sub)liminal...
— States of emergency: art in times of pandemic by Israel Rodríguez Giralt
...Syndemic Sublime is about being closer to the tangle of species and the representation of the end of that binary and fanciful separation between nature and culture. But when we watch Syndemic Sublime, who is it that is watching? Us or the computer that interprets data and generates images and opens up new possibilities for us? Technology can be seen as something that is instrumental, but that comes at the cost of locking us into the domination/liberation binary. Or, perhaps, we can embrace a sustainable present and a positive future and think of a kind of technology that is intimately enmeshed with the social fabric and with ourselves: a kind of technology that aids our adaptation to multiple ends...
— Technologies for the celebration of multiple ends by Paz Peña O.
...Laura Splan spent three months in 2020 collaborating with Integral Molecular scientists Dr. Benjamin Doranz and Dr. Edgar Davidson over Zoom to produce her series...created using Pymol to visualize intricate molecular models of SARS-CoV-2. Splan explains that “by using the specialized features of the software in unconventional ways, I unravel and distort the folded structure of the coronavirus spike protein. I playfully manipulate the folded forms...
...With the coronavirus outbreak, people worldwide have become preoccupied with a threat so physically small that it can’t be seen. The invisible world of viruses has long fascinated multi-media artist Laura Splan, who is artist in residence at a biotech lab...
Project Support provided by The Science Center Bioart Residency, Integral Molecular, The Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, Pioneer Works, International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA)
Animation Data Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Exhibitions: Pioneer Works, Currents New Media Art Festival, Center For Contemporary Arts, International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Santa Mònica Arts Center, Tokyo International Short Film Festival, Paris Awards Film Festival
Awards: Seoul International Short Film Festival: Best Experimental Film
