NATALIA MARIN
INDEPENDENT CURATOR
&
SCIARTIST
Artworks (selection)
Set my heart on fire; fuel my ideas (2021)
SET MY HEART ON FIRE; FUEL MY IDEAS is an intimate, intriguing, and interactive Arduino-based multimedia art installation. Using a proximity sensor it detects movement and transforms it into heartbeat. The 3D printed human heart (containing LED lights inside) starts beating with light impulses whenever it is touched or even only admired from close range. My main purpose was to create a direct dialogue between the artwork and the public, a dialogue about actions and consequences, a dialogue about love as a feeling responsible for generating new feelings, a dialogue about self-awareness and the way us humans perceive and interact with the surroundings. Just the way the heart can beat even outside the body, if it’s provided the necessary nutrients, art can function apart from science, but it needs it to add a true, palpable value to the beauty of the living world (and vice versa). Artists need the public just as much as the public needs creatives in order to filter and process reality.
Project realized within the Open Practice Society, program organized by the Qolony Association - Colony for Art and Science, financed by primăria capitalei through Arcub
byocardium (2022)
Discussing the problematic of the human interior voice, this kinetic artwork shows both a heart and a brain when viewed from different angles.
100x70cm
agamograph: mixed-media
BIO SIMULATIONS (SNIPPET)
(2022)
bacteria infected myocardial cells simulation
The aim of biosimulations is to elaborate model-based predictions of the behaviour and the dynamics of biological systems.
e.g. the response of an organ or a single cell towards a chemical, the reconstruction of a potentially toxic or deadly environment.
BioArt is a relatively new practice in the Romanian art field; it intertwines art, science and technology and encourages both researchers and creatives to work together for the greater good.
Using non-toxic materials, artists bring to the table complex creative discourses, simulating and actively “creating” life.
Materials used:
petri dish
silicone oil
acrylic spray paint
watercolor
miniature grass tufts
JavaScript-generated neuronal synapses using bio-data
(2022)
MΦRFECTION (2022)
Human fragments reassembled in petri dishes in a bio simulation. The purpose of this experiment is to highlight the artificiality of a concept that we have previously deemed natural: perfection.
Fibonacci-based organisms appear to be drifting away from the golden ratio as technology advances and our inventions become more cutting-edge than ever.
On the molecular level, the nucleotide spirals of human DNA have Fibonacci proportions. Further research is needed to discover the way in which “the crystallographic structure of DNA, stress patterns in nanomaterials, the stability of atomic nuclides and the periodicity of atomic matter depend on the Golden Ratio” (Boeyens and Thackeray). Meanwhile, recent genetic research has determined that the cross-section of microscopic double helix of DNA illustrates the Phi ratio. Each spiral of the double helix traces the shape of a pentagon. The DNA molecule “measures 34 angstroms long and 21 angstroms wide for each full cycle of its double helix spiral model” so its ratio is 1.6190476, close to the ratio of Phi, 1.61803. Since the primary DNA structure molecule is formed according to Fibonacci sequence, it is assumed that linker segments between molecules are also formed according to this mathematical regularity.
The fact that we can see mathematical patterns in nature is proof enough that concepts like the Fibonacci Sequence work and may be used as mathematical axioms. So, what happens if we reverse engineer it? What if, instead of searching for mathematical patterns by experiencing the eureka moments that are provided in nature, we used nature's patterns and procedures to develop technology? Would we achieve or surpass what we currently know as perfection?
I created a mathematically-imperfect Fibonacci spiral using moss, human hair, and artificial human skin and blood, analytically viewing the number each petri dish would represent in the Fibonacci sequence on a quasi-instinctual approach.
The aim of this bio simulation is to demystify the perfection of human nature, using human and nature.
My passion for various branches of science confronted me with the artistically unexplored sides of humanity and paradoxically showed me how close technology is to nature, in form, essence and even functionality:
Mosses in northern ecosystems are ubiquitous components of plant communities, and strongly influence nutrient, carbon and water cycling, acting as a base circuit. They help to soak up rainfall, maintain moisture in the soil below and keep conditions around them humid. This enables other plants around them thrive, such as in habitats like marshes and woodland. Mosses also play a vital role in the development of new ecosystems.
The system board (or motherboard) is the primary printed circuit board in a computer or other electronic device. In a modern desktop computer, the motherboard contains CPU and RAM sockets and the chipset, which houses the control circuits for all primary peripheral devices.