Circuit Garden
“For it is not the case that nature imitates art (techne), but art nature.”
Circuit Garden celebrates our electronic culture and invites us to contemplate nature – specifically human nature in symbiosis with machine intelligence. The 21-foot wide installation depicts a circuit board in the form of an artificial lawn that is “planted” with sculptural electronic devices. The playful, human scale of Circuit Garden invites us to enter the world of electrical engineering as participants instead of consumers. Situated in the landscape, smaller functional circuits mimic animal behaviors such as birdsong and chirping crickets. The sonic environment of Circuit Garden is dynamically created by electric vibrations of artificial origin and not recordings of real birds and crickets. These animal sound generators are sequenced by a tree of life, creating a naturalistic effect that unites Circuit Garden in an electronic and spiritual ecosystem.
Video credit: Brookfield Arts and Micah Joel Productions
Circuit Garden was commissioned by Arts Brookfield and curated by Common Ground Arts for exhibitions at 5 Manhattan West (2022) and 15 MetroTech (2023).
The Tree of Life in Circuit Garden, 2022. Electronics and printed circuit board inside of a textile sculpture depicting an integrated chip (IC). The Arduino is temporarily activated by a motion detector to pseudorandomly sequence animal sound generators in Circuit Garden.
Electronic technology is profoundly shaping our world. Many people are symbiotic with their smart phones and digital presence. Artificial intelligence is growing smarter, and our concept of “nature” is being radically transformed by engineering. Electricity is the most important invention since the discovery of fire. Yet, the art of electrical engineering is not well understood or practiced by people outside of the scientific community. I would like to invite everyone—not only engineers—into a conversation about electronic culture, nature, and the rise of machine intelligence. While most artists work with digital media, I focus my creative practice on electronic hardware because circuits are the physical body without which there would be no digital media. Like a biologist studies animals, I study circuits to understand the physiology of intelligent machines. I am inspired by Nikola Tesla’s statement, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” My art explores these concepts literally in the form of circuits that vibrate in naturalistic patterns. Circuit Garden pays homage to electrical oscillation, specifically to the astable multivibrator, which is my favorite method to generate life-like waveforms.
“by mere imitation, art cannot stand in competition with nature, and, if it tries, it looks like worm trying to crawl after an elephant”
