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    Thijs Biersteker’s Digital Sculptures Translate Climate Data into Urgent Calls to Action

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    “ORIGIN.” All images courtesy of Thijs Biersteker, shared with permission

    Thijs Biersteker’s Digital Sculptures Translate Climate Data into Urgent Calls to Action

    July 16, 2025

    ArtClimateDesignFoodNatureScience

    Kate Mothes

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    An unassuming cacao tree in Indonesia has made a unique connection to a high-tech artwork in China. Thanks to multimedia digital artist Thijs Biersteker, “ORIGIN” is a sculpture — a “digital twin” — that reflects the elemental experiences of the tropical tree through pulses of light.

    “When it rains in Indonesia, you see the sap flow through the sculpture in real time,” the artist says. “When the air quality shifts, the flows respond. During a heatwave, the tree visibly struggles. This real-time installation reveals just how fragile the cacao supply chain has become.”

    A majority of cacao, the primary ingredient in chocolate, is cultivated in places that are also the most vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis. Extreme weather, habitat destruction, and other issues also mean that global food resiliency is increasingly threatened.

    For Biersteker, data provides unique insights into changes on the ground, and through a recent collaboration with the Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute (ICCRI), he devised a way to literally illuminate environmental impacts.

    The artist is particularly interested in the relationship between data and nature, especially our scientific understanding of climate change and how it affects biodiversity, food, and habitats. Hooking up sensors to a specimen at ICCRI’s research site in Java, Bierksteker created a translucent, sculptural mirror of the tree, which is currently installed at Zaishui Art Museum in the city of Rizhao, Shandong Province.

    Another work, “WITHER,” in collaboration with UNICEF, comprises a tropical installation with flickering leaves representing rainforest loss. Each flicker symbolizes 128 square meters of deforestation, based on data from Amazon rainforest watch groups. And “ECONTINUUM,” a collaboration with Stefano Mancuso, invites us into a kind of “conversation” occurring between tree roots in a twinkling digital composition. The work nods to recent scientific discoveries that suggest trees communicate with one another via their intricate subterranean systems to provide or request nutrients or warn others of dangers like disease or infestations.

    “WITHER”

    For “ORIGIN,” the live cacao tree in Java transmits information, its digital copy animating with fluctuating light. “This mirrors the role of the institutions behind it: making the invisible visible and reconnecting people with the systems that feed them,” Biersteker says in a statement. “It is where data begins to speak to the imagination and where data-driven art becomes a new language for change.”

    Explore more on Bierksteker’s website and Instagram. If you enjoy pieces that explore the intersection of data and nature, you’ll also like Marshmallow Laser Feast’s “Of the Oak” installation at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

    Details of cacao tree in Java and “ORIGIN”

    Detail of “ORIGIN”

    Detail of “ECONTINUUM”

    Detail of “ORIGIN”

    Detail of “ORIGIN”

    “WITHER”

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    • 188 Shares139 Views

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      In ‘Of the Oak,’ a Magnificent Tree at Kew Gardens Gets an Immersive ‘Digital Double’

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      All images courtesy of Marshmallow Laser Feast, courtesy of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, shared with permission

      In ‘Of the Oak,’ a Magnificent Tree at Kew Gardens Gets an Immersive ‘Digital Double’

      May 30, 2025

      ArtDesignNatureScience

      Kate Mothes

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      “We believe in the power of stories to tickle senses and shift perceptions,” says Marshmallow Laser Feast, an experiential artist collective merging art, extended reality (XR), and film into large-scale, immersive exhibitions.

      MLF’s latest work, Of the Oak, situates a monumental, six-meter-tall, double-sided video of the titular tree in London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The piece focuses on the garden’s Lucombe oak, portraying a “digital double” using real-world data.

      Photo by Barney Steel

      MLF collaborated with researchers from Kew to create a vibrant, scientific rendering, blending advanced technologies with artistic imagery. The team stitched together thousands of images, used LiDAR to map the tree’s form with laser pulses, CT-scanned soil samples, employed ground-penetrating radar to trace the root system, and recorded a series of 24-hour soundtracks.

      “Of the Oak is a celebration for the oak tree as a living monument of vital ecological relationships and species interdependence,” MLF says. “It is an invitation to witness the oak as a keystone in the web of life, majestic and unassuming, stretching its branches skyward and its roots deep into the soil, embodying both quiet strength and boundless generosity.”

      Visitors can access a stunning digital field guide on their phones or via desktop from anywhere, featuring a series of meditations that “tune into the invisible bond between humans and trees.” The app also includes an interactive species guide highlighting the diverse range of birds, insects, fungi, and other inhabitants that rely on oak trees for survival.

      Of the Oak continues at Kew through September 28. Marshmallow Laser Feast is also currently presenting an immersive, seven-room exhibition titled YOU:MATTER at the National Science and Media Museum as part of Bradford 2025 U.K. City of Culture. See more projects on the collective’s website.

      Photo by Sandra Ciampon

      Photo by Barney Steel

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    • 175 Shares149 Views

      in Art

      Across 92 Screens in Times Square, Yuge Zhou’s ‘Trampoline Color Exercise’ Celebrates Global Unity

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      All images © Yuge Zhou, courtesy of Times Square Arts, shared with permission

      Across 92 Screens in Times Square, Yuge Zhou’s ‘Trampoline Color Exercise’ Celebrates Global Unity

      May 27, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Spanning a gridded background of rectangular, pink trampolines, hundreds of gymnasts mesmerizingly flip and twist, shapeshifting as they tuck and tumble. “Trampoline Color Exercise,” a monumental digital video collage installation by Chicago-based artist Yuge Zhou, takes a bird’s-eye view of athletes at peak form while abstracting their bodies and movements into undulating ripples of color.

      Born in China, Zhou has long explored the emotional, psychological, and geographic distance between her chosen home in the Midwest and the country of her birth. Themes of separation, loyalty, and cultural contrasts undergird much of her multidisciplinary work. She initiated her series of Moon Drawings, for example, during the pandemic when she was unable to travel the long distance to to Beijing to visit family.

      For “Trampoline Color Exercise,” Zhou interrogates colors in their role as national symbols. Pulling from archival Olympics footage, she collages gymnasts wearing primary colors in a nod to global national flags, literally and figuratively fluctuating in a reflection of our ever-evolving geopolitical reality.

      “‘Trampoline Color Exercise’ was created over the past few years amid intense political and international divisions, and now it feels especially timely,” Zhou says in a statement. “At its heart, the work is a celebration of globalization and a reflection on allegiance.”

      Co-presented by Times Square Arts and artnet, the monumental work will be screened across 92 electronic billboards in the legendary New York City intersection. Part of Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moment series, the city’s largest public art program, visitors will be able to see Zhou’s three-minute work every night between June 1 and 30, starting at 11:57 p.m.

      Explore more on Zhou’s website.

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    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Art

      Endless Fields of Detritus Blanket Cássio Vasconcellos’s Aerial Composites

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      Detail of “Air Force.” All images courtesy of Cássio Vasconcellos and Nara Roesler Gallery, shared with permission

      Endless Fields of Detritus Blanket Cássio Vasconcellos’s Aerial Composites

      November 12, 2024

      ArtClimatePhotography

      Kate Mothes

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      Where do jets go when they no longer fly? What happens to shipping containers when they aren’t useful anymore for cargo? The answer is invisible to most of us, but for Cássio Vasconcellos, abandoned trains, planes, and automobiles are far from forgotten.

      For more than four decades, the São Paolo-based artist has been fascinated by the relationship between humans and the landscape. Over the years, his work has captured dramatic impressions of sprawling cities around the globe, often from the air, spurring an ongoing series called Collectives that condenses details of urban infrastructure like highways and parking lots into sprawling, all-over compositions.

      “Collective 11: Airplanes”

      Collectives 2, to which these images belong, focuses solely on the mesmerizing—and mind-boggling—quantity of scrapped vehicles and metal indefinitely parked in nondescript places. Vasconcellos draws from tens of thousands of aerial photographs he has made of junkyards, scrap heaps, airplane graveyards, and dumps to create remarkable, large-scale composite images.

      The artist has mapped all of the junkyards around São Paolo, plus numerous more near the Brazilian cities of Cubatão, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro. He has also documented desert landscapes in the U.S. that serve as final resting places for commercial airliners and military jets.

      “Over,” for example, considers numerous associated meanings, like “overview,” “all-over,” “overdose,” or “game over.” The title references not only excess but the overflow of visual information in contemporary society.

      “Seeing an image like this is to make clear that there is no ‘throw away,’” Vasconcellos says in a video about “OVER,” which took him about a year and three months to complete. “This volume of things that are in the work… they are out there,” he adds. “I just put them together.”

      Detail of “Over”

      “These photos may look like post-apocalyptic scenarios, but they could be our future,” the artist says in a statement. “We still have to learn that by throwing things away and taking them out of our sight, we don’t make themdisappear. In fact, they keep existing somewhere else, outliving us mostof the time.”

      Vasconcellos cuts out individual shipping containers, trucks, dumpsters, and piles of detritus in a meticulous and time-consuming digital process. He never repeats an element in a composition, and each piece is scaled and situated so that the shadows align with the directionality of the light. He then adds dust and dirt to the surfaces, simultaneously emphasizing the patina of time and an eerie sense of timelessness.

      Devoid of people, Vasconcellos’s images nevertheless describe the human predilection to produce, consume, and cast aside. “It’s kind of nonsense, because there are some paths, but you don’t really understand how a person or a car can get in there—or get out,” Vasconcellos says. “It is a possible world, but at the same time, an absurd one.”

      Vasconcellos is represented by Nara Roesler Gallery, and you can explore more of his work on his website and Instagram.

      “Collective 12: Boats”

      “Collective 10: Containers”

      “Air Force”

      “Collective 7: Metal Scrap”

      Detail of “Collective 7: Metal Scrap”

      “Collective 9: Scrap Dumpster”

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    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Art

      In ‘Hidden Portraits,’ Volker Hermes Reimagines Historical Figures in Overwhelming Frippery

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      “Hidden van Mierevelt IV” (2022), from “Portrait of a Man in a White Frill” (1620s) by Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt

      In ‘Hidden Portraits,’ Volker Hermes Reimagines Historical Figures in Overwhelming Frippery

      October 18, 2024

      ArtBooksHistory

      Kate Mothes

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      Engulfed in their own finery, the subjects of Volker Hermes’ portraits epitomize a bygone era. From the Italian High Renaissance to French Rococo, his digital reinterpretations playfully hide the faces of wealthy and aristocratic sitters.

      Hidden Portraits: Old Masters Reimagined, a new book forthcoming this month, gathers a quintessential selection of Hermes’ works into one volume. Highlighting the artist’s wry commentary on luxury, social status, and fame, the selection delves into the history of portraiture through a humorous lens.

      “Hidden Wright of Derby” (2023), from “Portrait of Dorothy Beridge, née Gladwin” (1777) by Joseph Wright of Derby

      Hermes expands upon the ornate silk gowns, brocade, and lace ruffs that characterized elite fashion through the centuries (previously). An enormous bow cocoons a woman in “Hidden Wright of Derby,” for example, elaborating on a portrait of a wealthy woman painted by Joseph Wright of Derby, now in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

      In striking profile, strings of pearls and a green, helmet-like hood envelop Bianca Maria Sforza, Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, in “Hidden de Predis,” the 15th-century inspiration for which can be viewed at the National Gallery of Art.

      Explore more of Hermes’ work on his website, and snag a copy of Hidden Portraits on Bookshop.

      “Hidden de Predis” (2023), from “Portrait Bianca Maria Sforza” (1493-95) by the workshop of Ambrogio de Predis

      “Hidden Titian II” (2021), from “Portrait of a Man with a Quilted Sleeve” (1511) by Titian

      “Hidden de Bray” (2022), from “Portrait of a Young Woman” (1667) by Jan de Bray

      “Hidden Cornelius Johnson” (2023), from “Portrait of Thomas, 1st Baron Coventry” (1631) by Cornelius Johnson

      “Hidden de Keyser” (2019), from “Portrait of a Gentleman” (c. 1626) by Thomas de Keyser

      “Hidden Pourbus VIII” (2023), from “Portrait of a Nobleman” (1593) by Frans Pourbus the Younger

      “Hidden Anonymous (Munich Court Painter)” (2023), from “Portrait of a Young Lady” (1623), by an unknown artist

      Cover of ‘Hidden Portraits: Old Masters Reimagined,’ featuring “Hidden Jacometto” (2019), from “Portrait of a Young Man” (1480s) by Jacometto Veneziano

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    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Art

      Vibrant Life Emanantes from Meggan Joy’s Magical Collaged Silhouettes

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      “Try One’s Luck.” All images courtesy of J. Rinehart Gallery, shared with permission

      Vibrant Life Emanantes from Meggan Joy’s Magical Collaged Silhouettes

      September 9, 2024

      Art Nature Photography

      Grace Ebert

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      Thousands of individual flowers and plants grown in Meggan Joy’s Seattle garden form the contours of her ethereal figures. The artist (previously) collages perfectly trimmed photographs of each specimen into silhouettes lush with color and texture.

      In her most recent body of work titled Fever Dream, Joy draws on fear, loss, and the immense potential for pain. “Wide and Wild,” for example, depicts a woman cradling a Eurasian Eagle Owl near her heart. “She’s a piece for when you find your person (whether that be a lover, friend, kids, whatever), and once you have them, you know that if they disappear in any way, you also will be gone,” the artist shares in a statement.

      “Wide and Wild”

      Others relate to bad decisions yielding positive experiences and how etermal bonds require patience and understanding. Each work, Joy shares, “whisper(s) the components of the stories that tested us and, instead of condemning our faults, reveal that those moments left us the most exciting scars.

      Fever Dream is on view through September 25 at J. Rinehart Gallery. Follow Joy’s work on Instagram.

      “Thick As Thieves”

      “Thick As Thieves”

      “Try One’s Luck”

      “Icarus”

      “Tyche”

      Detail of “Wide and Wild”

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