Curtis Bracher

Project and Bio information for West-Coast Artist, Curtis Bracher

 

Natural Systems Interactivity

My work explores with interactive art installations that develop hybrid ecologies using sensors, reactive forms and spaces, natural growing processes, and biological growth systems within the natural world. Using Art+Science practice as a platform to hack complex social, biological and machine-based intelligences illuminates and amplifies a complex relationship to our world. That inter-relationship intertwines a beautiful symbiosis and an agency of change. My goal is to see as an emergent world sees, rather than preserving a sense of self-reflexivity.

 

Experimental Drawing

Together with these more connective and external approaches of my 3D interactive work, my drawing practice continues to aim for more intimate questions. I still strive to draw passionately and expressively (especially in the Portraits) however, most of the drawings act as an organizer of sorts. An explanation, a reflection, an understanding, these drawings are the remnants of exploration into a possible futeue. I’m trying to interrogate connections within and comparing them to an active relationship with the world.

When the drawing process is working, I’m reveling in learning. See in the work a foundation in Experimentation, Process, Chance, Divergence, Perception, Movement as a Time-based sensory input, Contrast, and Interaction In every piece a curious reflection of natural processes and our connection to them.

#art #drawing #experimentaldrawing #mycelium #mushroom #oldgrowth #forest #dirt #bioart #artandbiology #artandtechnology #interactiveart #processart #sensors #arduino

WORK IN PROGRESS

Mycelium Drawing Project

 

2022. In this experimental drawing project, I’m working with mycelium as a living breathing structure, connective and communicative. Trying to visualize the communication, activity and interactivity, as well, and in stunning admiration, the robustness of cooperation within the biological matrix of an “old growth” forest.

 

The project starts with creating semi-enclosed terrarium pods that, with a variety of plants, substrate, mycelium and other biological components, tries to emulate a section of stable forest. The goal for the pods is to develop a section of the forest that is both emergent, decomposing and regenerative.

 

As the pods mature, I intend to use a variety of active and passive sensors (temp, CO2, humidity, electrodes from EEGs) to read any and all electrical impulses, measuring for any sign of contrast and change. Looking for signs in and between the various types of mycelium, plant roots, decomposing woods and leaf litter, and any groups of bio-organisms that are working to make this “forest floor” active.

 

Mycelium Pods

 

The eventual plan is to see if any visual patterning can be mapped to these chemical/electrical impulses and to see those impulses as visual communications. Not just the plants talking, but the entire forest section. To get deeper into the visualizations, and keep it from becoming an overly simplistic “pie chart” data visualization, I’ll be looking at both referencing, layering and deepening the chosen visual representations as they are mapped. As much as possible, I’ll be trying to get the electrical communications to match up to a gestural and expressive mark of human visual perception - color, line, texture, shape, etc. I plan to try a lot of different methods to see if and how the forest communicates. From Process Art, rules-based drawing (think Sol Lewit’s “Wall Drawings”), to a variegated and poetic expressionistic work (think Agnes Martin, Brice Marden), I’ll be trying a number of different methodologies to see if I can understand the discussions better. I’m secretly hoping that the entire interactive pod reveals a much different POV, more external, collaborative, perceptual. One that would be an apt or coherent way of understanding its particular communications. I’m assuming the visual part of this project - the drawing - will take many different shapes and continue to change/refine as the project proceeds.

 

The resluts will be feed into a neural network providing visual details that will control my next set of drawings.

 

Hoping that the Mycelium shows me how to draw.

 

More Info on Mycelium Running Page

OLDER WORK

Untitled(Bark)

Drawing

Untitled (Bark)

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2
Standing Bears

INTERACTIVITY

Standing Bears

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3

RECENT EXHIBITIONS

Work that is up for display in an exhibition

Two Friends with Flowers

Two Friends with Flowers


San Diego Community College

San Diego Community College

SD, CA

Faculty - Group Show

ONGOING discussions

Experimental Drawing and Motion

Motion as the purpose exploration of drawing. The "thickening" of experience as information gatherers.

"The manner in which the brain integrates information from different senses in order to boost perception and guide actions is a major research topic in cognitive neuroscience (Calvert et al., 2004; Spence and Driver, 2004; Stein, 2012) and a topic of increasing interest in the design of virtual environments. Multisensory integration of bodily inputs, in particular, has been recently proposed as a key mechanism underlying the experience of oneself within a body, which is perceived as one’s own (body ownership), which occupies a specific location in space (self-location), and from which the external world is perceived (first person-perspective), i.e., the different components of what has been called bodily self-consciousness (Blanke and Metzinger, 2009; Blanke, 2012; Blanke et al., 2015)"

continue reading -   Peripersonal Space: An Index of Multisensory Body–Environment Interactions in Real, Virtual, and Mixed Realities by Andrea Serino et al

Multi-System Interactivity

Within the mysterious comfort of darkness, is our nourishing decay.

"Mycorrhizal organisms form a mutually dependent beneficial relationship with the roots of host plants, ranging from trees to grasses. “Myco” means mushroom, “rhizal” means roots. The collection of filament of cells that grow into a mushroom body is called the mycelium. The mycelia of these mycorrhizal mushrooms can form an exterior sheath covering the roots of plants and are called ecto-mycorrhizal. When they invade the interior of the root cells of host plants they are called endomycorrhizal. In either case, both organisms benefit from this association. Plant growth is accelerated. The resident mushroom mycelium increases the plant’s absorption of nutrients, nitrogenous compounds, and essential elements (phosphorous, copper, and zinc). By growing beyond the immediate root zone, the mycelium channels and concentrates nutrients from afar. Plants with mycorrhizal fungal partners can also resist diseases far better than those without."