Joanna Hoffmann

Microscape

Sound composition: Andre Bartetzki (www.bartetzki.de)

multi-channel multimedia installation in 3D stereoscopic technology (anaglyph).

PORTFOLIO pl

MICROSCAPE I / Conference “Multidisciplinary Approach to Structural Biology. From Macromolecules to Cells”, Institute Poznan Science Center, 2015,

https://vimeo.com/122182726

MICROSCAPE II / Festival of Science & Art in Poznan, Microscape2 Poznan Science Center / Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznan, 2016:

https://vimeo.com/163793029

MICROSCAPE III / Tetramatyka Audiovisual Festival Lvov, 1^st Symposium Medicine Update Smart Lion, Medical University, 2017;

https://sabout

Key words: entropy, chaos, determinism, self-organization

Abstract

The multi-channel multimedia installation Microscape evokes the age-old philosophical questions about determinism and the indeterminism of our existence. Inspired by modern scientific research on the dynamics of complex systems and self-organization processes in nature, it combines scientific inspirations and data visualization methods with artistic imagination, transporting the viewer into the abstract world of micro-events.

Can the phenomon of life be expressed in the formula: 𝑆=𝛋∙log𝑊?

The theory formed at the end of the 19th century, according to which the movement of small particles, atoms and molecules, determines the properties of the matter of our world, was not immediately accepted. Only after the suicidal death of its author Ludwig Boltzmann and the support of such scientific gurus as Albert Einstein and Max Plank, the boundaries of the positivist realm opened, letting some light into the mathematical world of the invisible. Can we there find answers to the fundamental questions about the purposefulness and indeterminism of our existence, about the processes and rules underlying our (micro & macro) reality which bothers us for millennia?

Platform 11^th. One of the places I visit quite often is Berlin Central Station (Hauptbanhof). The multi-level architecture and organization of space makes the Hauptbanhof particularly suggestive of its practical and symbolic functions. Platform 11, from which trains depart for Poznań, is located on the upper floor of the station. I choose the right spot, set the camera and immerse myself, as if through a microscope tube, into a section of the lower level. For a few hours I register the movements of "human atoms and molecules". I don't know if their space-time coordinates are determined by any external or internal necessity or only by the likelihood of events. I restrain my imagination, which immediately begins to create fictitious narratives that go far beyond the transitory "here and now" available to me. I remove the background and now the characters move in abstract space taking on a different reality, not embedded in a specific place and time.

stills (3D anaglyph)

Atoms matter and entropy rules

However, this space is not empty.
Deprived of gravity, centre and purpose, Microscape's abstract space is filled with virtual atoms and molecules, bits of information, which, like human characters, appear suddenly, interact shortly with each other and drift in (unknown) directions.
It happens, however, that in this "fluctuation of the sea of chaos" (using Ludwig Boltzman’ phrase), local interactions give birth to small aggregations which create islets of spatial orders of some internal energy and dynamics.
They form structures of amino acids and proteins, basic building blocks of life. Deprived of specific functions, they perform crazy “thermodynamic” dance, which choreography is difficult to predict. After a while they disappear from the field of view or disintegrate. Sometimes they carry a misty scene from a laboratory, strengthening the impression of participating in some overwhelming experience with unclear premises and meanings.

Entropy of the system is irreversible and impossible to stop. All appearing structures are transient: after exhaustion of internal energy they irretrievably decay and transform. Every now and then, in the Microscape’s virtual space, "atoms" appear that are the "inverted" pupil of my eye - the observer. My gaze is diffused, multiplied, chaotic. It is part of the observed system.

As an artist, I wonder if the sense of life lies in quixotic fight against entropy? On internal creativity, which, from the crumbling structures, creates scores of forms, unfinished narratives, searching for some hidden logic?

If so, then the value is not the transient structure itself. It is the dynamics, behaviours and interactions of individuals that are the source of momentary order, senses and meanings.

The theory of entropy was formed in the second half of the 19th century, during turbulent social changes brought about by the industrial revolution and technological progress. Today, we live in similarly troubled times of crises of current social and economic orders, cultural paradigms and of new techno-social utopias. We know, according to the second law of thermodynamics, that the transition of a system from one state to another is always accompanied by an increase in entropy. According to Boltzmann, the forces causing the process of ordering do not lie outside the system but are born inside, through the interactions of its atoms / molecules. It is worth to remember when looking at the unstable horizons of our micro and macro landscapes.

MICROSCAPE I / Conference “Multidisciplinary Approach to Structural Biology. From Macromolecules to Cells”, Institute Poznan Science Center, 2015,

https://vimeo.com/122182726