Baroque Bodies (Ambient Portals)

"Baroque Bodies (Ambient Portals)" explores the interconnectedness of the natural world and the built environment with an otherworldly meditation on post-human subjectivities. The viewer is taken on a journey through molecular bodies situated in a liminal space that is at once biological and technological, autonomous and entangled. 3D animations with molecular models and AI-generated images are accompanied by sonifications of scientific visualizations. The conceptual underpinnings of the project are drawn from epigenetic research on environmental influences on gene expression. Drawing both inspiration and material from emerging research on the effects of trauma, climate change, food scarcity, pesticides, and other external influences on public health, the work explores the complex relationships between what is invisible and in plain sight, nature and nurture. The imagery evokes notions of residues in both the abstract (metaphorical, emotional) and the physical (literal, genetic). The animations, made in Blender, were created using 3D molecular models of nucleosomes that reflect AI-generated landscapes. The mirror surfaces of genetic structures (histone proteins, DNA strands) reflect idyllic landscapes that are otherwise invisible in the animations. The reflected landscapes were created with Midjourney using text prompts from epigenetics research on the influence of environmental factors on gene expression.