Memo Akten
The Awesome Machinery of Nature: We are all connected
About the Item
“The Awesome Machinery of Nature: We are all connected” (2021) is an abstract film, an experimental simulation and computational composition that celebrates the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things across many scales of time and space – from the interactions of sub-atomic particles and oscillations in the quantum fields that permeate space-time; to the formation of matter and stars; to the emergence and evolution of life from inanimate matter, and the cosmic webs that connect us all. The work is an evolution of “Simple Harmonic Motion” series by Memo Akten – a series of works that investigate the emergence of complex behaviour through the interaction of fundamental entities driven by very simple rules. This new work, builds upon this to celebrate The Awesome Machinery of Nature.
Technique: Custom software, openFrameworks/C++, Houdini/VEX/Python
About the Artist
Memo Akten is an artist, experimental filmmaker, musician and computer scientist from Istanbul, Turkey. He works with emerging technologies and computation as a medium, to create images, sounds, films, large-scale responsive installations and performances. Fascinated by trying to understand the nature of nature and the human condition, he draws from fields such as biological and artificial intelligence, computational creativity, consciousness, neuroscience, physics, biology, ecology, philosophy, ritual and religion. He has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and expressive human-machine interaction from Goldsmiths University of London, and is Assistant Professor of Computational Arts at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Akten is a frequent keynote speaker on topics involving art, science, technology and culture. As part of his PhD, he specializes in expressive human-machine interaction and artistic explorations of Artificial Intelligence, and in this field he is considered one of the world’s leading pioneers.
