Artificial Nature is an installation series and research project by Haru Ji and Graham Wakefield.

Humans have always looked to nature for inspiration. As artists, we have done so in creating a family of “artificial natures”: interactive art installations surrounding humans with biologically-inspired complex systems experienced in immersive mixed reality. The invitation is to become part of an alien ecosystem rich in networks of complex feedback, but not as its central subject. Although artificial natures are computational, we draw our inspiration from the sense of open-ended continuation and the aesthetic integration of playful wonder with the tension of the unfamiliar recalled from childhood explorations in nature. By giving life to mixed reality we’re anticipating futures inevitably saturated in interconnected computational media. However we believe computation is not intrinsically utilitarian, nor in opposition to nature; we see it instead as a material means to plunge even more deeply into what nature is, and find our place within it. Artificial Nature springs from an inherent curiosity and aesthetic survival instinct to narrate alternate worlds in superposition to us, as a reminder that although the imaginable is greater than the known, the real is greater and weirder still.

Since 2007, Artificial Nature installations have counted forty exhibits venues including La Gaite Lyrique (Paris), ZKM (Karlsruhe), CAFA (Beijing), MOXI and the AlloSphere (Santa Barbara), and City Hall (Seoul), festivals such as Microwave (Hong Kong), Currents (Santa Fe), and Digital Art Festival (Taipei), conferences such as SIGGRAPH (Yokohama, Vancouver), ISEA (Singapore), and EvoWorkshops (Tubingen), as well as recognition such as the international 2015 VIDA Art & Artificial Life competition and the 2017 Kaleidoscope Virtual Reality showcase.

We Are Entanglement

Interactive audiovisual installation: 30ft x 15ft LED wall, depth cameras, mutual feedback simulation of mycorrhizal neural network and attention-driven AI rendering.

• Signals, Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) & DigiBC. Bentall Gallery, Vancouver, Canada. 2023-10-01 - 2023-10-07.

Entanglement

Site-native immersive video, 16x16x4m projection, 5.1-channel sound, 12'21". Generative audio-visual feedback system: generative AI image feedback, procedural modeling, agent based complex dynamic systems, custom software.

• Entanglement. XR Lab, Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan, South Korea. 2023-07-04 - 2023-08-15.
• Entanglement. NeurIPS (Creative AI track). Thirty-seventh Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems. New Orleans, 2023-12-11 to 2023-12-15.
• Entanglement. Seoul Light Winter Festival Gwanghwamun Square. National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, outdoor LED media facade (90m x 9m, 8192x940 pixels). 2024-01-02 - 2024-01-21.
• Entanglement. Relay Review Exhibition. XRLab, Ulsan Museum of Art, Korea. 2024-02-08 - 2024-05-19 (Invited re-exhibit, selected among three best works in the space since its opening).

How much work must the universe do, and how many dreams does it have to nurture, in order to grow a single tree? Then, how much of the universe does a forest harbor?

Entanglement, inspired by the motif of the forest, invites spectators into a multi-sensory, multi-dimensional immersive environment where visible and invisible worlds are interconnected and symbiotic. The artwork consists of three elements: the growth of trees through procedural modeling, generative AI that dreams images of trees and forests, and the operation of dynamic systems that connect tree roots with the mechanisms of fungi and bacteria, or of neural networks within a brain. This artwork was created as a site-specific non-real-time feedback system for the XR Lab at the Ulsan Art Museum, for an artistic experience that accesses the complexity of nature while intentionally allowing for errors and data omissions in the creative process to maintain the overall balance of the system. Through the entanglement of microcosmic and simultaneous connections, it offers a sensory opportunity for contemplation and inspiration regarding ways of connecting with the world beyond ourselves, as well as emergence, creativity, and computational media technologies.

This artwork was completed through a collaboration between the artists of Artificial Nature and researchers from the Yonsei University Intelligence Networking Lab (Chae, Chanbyoung & Choi, Dongha). We express gratitude to Ulsan Art Museum and Digital Silence/Fuse Art Project for organizing the exhibition, and for support in workspace and hardware also provided by UCSB (MAT and the AlloSphere Research Group), SBCAST, and York University (Alice Lab).

Conservation of Shadows: Los Angeles

4x ESP32 microcontrollers, 56x vibration motor-driven bells, 2x LiDar sensors, 2x projectors, HTC VIVE Pro HMD, custom C++/JavaScript/GLSL software.

• SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, Los Angeles Convention Centre, USA. (Juried competition, under 10% acceptance ratio) 2023-08-06 - 2023-08-10

Time is instantaneously crystallized in space to form glistening trails of you and other creatures within this interactive mixed reality installation. Mingling sounds and shadows are the shared physical connections between the visible and invisible realms of a bio-inspired computational ecosystem.

Conservation of Shadows in the ZKM

0.5 cubic meters of salt, 4x ESP32 microcontrollers, 56x vibration motor-driven bells, 2x LiDar sensors, 3x projectors, 2x HTC VIVE Pro HMDs, 2x PCs, custom C++/JavaScript/GLSL software.

• Conservation of Shadows in the ZKM. BioMedien: The Age of Media with Life-like Behavior. ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany. 2021-12-18 - 2022-08-28.

Conservation of Shadows in the ZKM is a mixed reality eco-systemic habitat where humans can engage with unfamiliar life-like creatures in infinite feedback. The work responds to the specific memories and imaginations of the host venue ZKM as a former munitions factory, then industrial site, then future-oriented media art center, with stories of a secretly closed basement.

Invisible unknown beings seem to explore the space around us - ghostly shadows passing across the salty floor, chasing and mingling with our own shadows, and whistling past the small bells, making them ring. Entering virtual reality, visitors dive deeper into an artificial ecosystem cohabiting in superposition with our own. What first appeared as shadows on the floor is unveiled to be an entire biome moving around us: curious based snake/bullet-like metallic entities searching for anything new in the world, smaller bolt-like builders seeking out ephemeral traces of being and behaviour, and weaving longer memories into a constantly growing mycelial structures of conducting colours and motions, like networks of neurons in a brain. Neither completely programmed nor entirely random, they leave enough room for collective self-determined growth.

Here, sounds and shadows work as a bridge between physical and invisible realms. In this sensitively endogenous world, all sensorial components have intrinsic functions. All continuously build inter-relationships among themselves, including us humans. Its alienation awakens us to the weirder and wilder nature beyond the human-centered world-as-we-know-it; as a vitally playful and curious art-as-it-could-be.

Data Ocean (for the Synaptic Time Tunnel)

• Synaptic Time Tunnel, SIGGRAPH, Los Angeles Convention Centre, USA. 2023-08-06 - 2023-08-10

Real-time responsive video, 9535x1080 pixels, 60fps, GPU-based data-driven particle and fluid system. One component layer for a large-scale two-wall projection array (40m x 4.4m per wall) as part of the 50th SIGGRAPH Synaptic Time Tunnel archive data art exhibit, built upon a data archive of all historical SIGGRAPH conferences, organised collectively by teams at Bowling Green University + University of California Santa Barbara, with over $250k funding secured from Autodesk Inc. 15,000 visitors.

Infranet

AI / A-Life Data Art Installation: Projections, Sound, Evolutionary Neural Networks, Geospatial Visualization

Can data form a habitat for life? Infranet is a generative artwork realized through a population of artificial lifeforms with evolutionary neural networks, thriving upon open geospatial data of the infrastructure of the city as their sustenance and canvas. Born curious, these agents form spatial networks through which associations spread in complex contagions.

In this city as organism, the data grounds an unbounded, decentralized, open-ended, and unsupervised system. Non-human beings flourish in this environment by learning, discovering, communicating, self-governing, and evolving. The invitation is to witness, through immersive visualization and sonficiation of this complex adaptive system, how a new morphologic landscape emerges as a possible but speculative city.

> With the assistance of York U students Nicholas Abbruzzese, Amir Rostami Bahador, Nicole Skrypuch.

• Infranet. Life, A Sensorium Virtual Exhibition. ISEA 2020, Montreal, Canada. Online 2020-08-13 to 2020-08-18.

• Infanet:Vancouver. IEEE VIS Arts Exhibition, Vancouver, Canada. 2019-10-22 – 2019-10-25.

• Infanet:NYC. Korean Media Arts Festival; Techno-imagination: Living Data. Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Art Gallery, Manhattan, New York, USA. 2019-8-1 – 2019-10-15.

• Infranet: Gwangju. Gwangju Media Art Festival 2018 "Algorithm Society: Birth of The Machine-God", Asia Culture Center (ACC), Gwangju, Korea. 2018-11-28 - 2018-12-7.

Insuperposition

Sand + sculpture with projected augmented reality, motion sensing, head-mounted virtual reality, large-scale projection.

As with its parents Archipelago and Inhabitat, Insuperposition is an ecosystem of vegetal and motile creatures subsisting on island-like topologies -- in this case five laser-cut topographies created by a combination of hand and algorithm, covered with a non-drying sand to allow reshaping. Visitor's shadows destroy and refertilize the land, and movements distribute thousands of seeds through the spaces between islands. With the VR headset visitors are shrunk to about an inch upon the islands, surrounded by foraging lifeforms, chirping their songs around the worlds. The change of spatial scale is echoed in a change of temporal scale on the large gallery wall, where a slow timelapse-scan around the islands gradually unfolds.

> With the assistance of York U students Michael Palumbo, Nicholas Abbruzzese, Andrew Sidsworth, Nicole Skrypuch and Alex Zonta.

• Daejeon Bienalle 2018 "Bio", Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, Korea. 2018-07-16 - 2018-10-24.

> Exhibiting alongside works by Suzanne Anker (U.S.A.), Pei-Ying Lin(Taiwan), Gilberto Esparza (Mexico), Stelarc (Australia), Philip Beesley (Canada), CHOE U-Ram (Korea), Heather Dewey-Hagborg (U.S.A.), Drew Berry (Australia), Pinar Yoldas (U.S.A.), BCL (Austria/Japan), Art Orienté Objet (France), Agi Haines (UK), KIM Hyungjoong (Korea), Louis-Philippe Demers (Canada/Singapore).

Conservation of Shadows

330kg salt, 12 nD::Node Arduino boards, 140 vibration motor-driven bells, 150m wire, Kinect sensors, projector, HTC Vive HMD.

A site specific work for a gallery in the Seoul Innovation Center that was previously occupied by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention for medicinal storage and animal experimentation. For this historically charged space we imagined unknown new beings growing fond of the wet texture of old wood, the fragrance of sunshine smeared between cracks, and the quietness of murmuring and whispering. To let them live, we extended senses to mix realities surrounded by softly ringing bells and the crunch of salt underfoot as their shadows pass by; and an alternate perspective through head-mounted display in which we become the shadows around which new beings play.

> With special thanks to Mark-David Hosale and students of the Digital Media program at York University (Adiola Palmer, Amir Bahador Rostami, Filiz Eryilmaz, and Nicholas Abbruzzese) for invaluable help putting together the physical computing system for the bells.

• Conservation of Shadows (Underworld). Feral Hospitality. Sidewalk Labs, Toronto, Canada. 2019-03-02.

• Requiem for Hybrid Life, Seoul Museum of Art Chang-go, Seoul, Korea. 2017-10-17 - 2017-10-23.

Inhabitat

Sand-sculpture augmented reality, head-mounted virtual reality, large-scale projection.

Inhabitat is a mixed-reality artwork of creative exploration within an alternate ecosystem of life-forms and a playful engagement with the complex interconnectivity of nature. It was exhibited at MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation, Santa Barbara, U.S.A., from August 2017 through January 2018, receiving around 65,000 visitors. Inhabitat was born out of a desire to bring biologically inspired complex systems into human-scale physical spaces while displacing the human from the center of the world. Inhabitat is a single world that awaits active observation and playful engagement through three distinct perspectives of scale and agency—three ways to see with other eyes. At the macro-scale, the entire world is experienced as projection-mapped landscape of sand upon a hand-sculpted substrate that forms the centerpiece of the exhibit. Visitors may wander freely around the landscape observing the behaviors of the alien life-forms that inhabit it as they busily forage, metabolize, reproduce and emit sounds. A mediated meso-scale view of the world is projected onto the museum wall behind. By donning a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display, visitors enter the world at the micro-scale.

• Interactive Media Theater, MOXI (The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation, Santa Barbara, USA. 2017-08-11 - 2018-01-08 (Commissioned).

Endless Current

Virtual reality (head mounted display or surround projection and sound), artificial ecosystem.

Endless Current is a visualization of a complex biologically-inspired system. Through immersive display it presents an infinitely explorable world sustaining a virtual ecosystem of multiple species. These artificial life forms subsist within a simulated 3D fluid environment that is constrained by an amorphous landscape reminiscent of underwater or microscopic spaces. Immersed participants view virtual doubles of their hands and arms within this world, with which they can intuitively navigate the space and discover interactions with the simulated life.

Exhibits:

• Bata Library, Trent University, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, 2019-11-15 - 2019-11-20.

• VRTO / Spiral Film Philosophy Conference / Doors Open Toronto. Toronto Media Arts Centre. 2019-05-17 - 2019-06-03.

• The AlloSphere, Santa Barbara, USA. 2017-08-24 onward.

• Different Games Exhibition & Conference Toronto, OCAD University, Toronto, 2017-05-31 - 2017-06-03.

• Kaledioscope Virtual Reality Showcase volume II -- selected among 21 projects for this international showcase exploring the art & science of virtual reality.
  London: 2017-03-29 / Seoul: 2017-03-30 / Leipzig: 2017-04-02 / Berlin: 2017-04-07 / Los Angeles: 2017-04-20 / Kyiv: 2017-04-22 / Sydney: 2017-04-27 / Paris: 2017-04-28, 2017-04-29 / New York: TBD / Hong Kong: TBD

• HTC VivePort virtual reality content distribution network. 2017-01-30 - present. Top featured project March 4-6.

• SV+VS (Sonifying Visuals+Visualizing Sound). Gallery MUN, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Seoul, Korea. 2016-08-20 - 2016-09-18 (Curated).

• Currents New Media Festival. El Museo Cultural, and also the Digital Dome at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, USA. 2016-06-10 - 2016-06-26 (Juried).

• IEEE VIS Arts Program. LeRoy Neiman Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA. 2015-10-16 - 2015-10-30 (Juried).

• Artience Project Daejeon. Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon, Korea. 2014-08-23 - 2014-09-02 (Curated).

• Life is very Beautiful. Yeulmaru Exhibition Hall, Yeosu, Korea. 2014-02-18 - 2014-04-06 (Curated).

• Life is very Beautiful. Space-K Gallery, KI Building, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea. 2013-10-10 - 2013-12-6 (Curated).

• Korea Electronics Show 2013. KINTEX Convention Center, Ilsan, Korea. 2013-10-07 - 2013-10-10 (Commissioned).

Portrait

Pair of Raspberry Pi, 10" screen, Korean traditional paper, 4" speakers.

An audiovisual animation and real-time generative simulation exploring boundary realms between the living and the non-living, familiar and alien, body and world. A human form is inhabited by a writhing algorithmic network in which each segment tries to maintain its relationship with another, bubbling and crackling as it evolves. It is a self portrait, both in terms of its metaphorical play of nature and artifice, as well as by synthesizing earlier independent work by each of the artists with a scanned point cloud of the artist’s body.

Exhibits:

• Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology (SBCAST) El Museo Cultural, Santa Barbara, USA. 2017-07-03.

• Currents New Media Festival. El Museo Cultural, Santa Fe, USA. 2017-06-09 - 2017-06-25.

Archipelago

Sand, projection mapping, mixed reality, artificial ecosystem.

Archipelago was one of five works awarded Honourable Mention in the Finished Project category of the VIDA 16.0 Art & Artificial Life competition.

Exhibits:

• Seoul Sangsangryok Baljeonso (Power Station of Creativity). City Hall, Seoul, Korea. 2015-02-16 - 2015-02-27 (Invited re-exhibit).

• Capitaine Futur. La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, France. 2014-10-08 - 2015-02-08 (Curated).

• Seoul Sangsangryok Baljeonso (Power Station of Creativity). City Hall, Seoul, Korea. 2014-10-01 - 2014-10-21 (Juried competition 1st prize, CAD ~$32,000).

• Systems and Subversions. IDEA Space, Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Colorado Springs, USA. 2013-10-28 - 2013-11-5 (Curated).

Chronophotography / Chronosculpture

Lenticular print, 3D print

Exhibited at: Media + Life: Sensorial Collaboration. College of Art, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Tokyo, Japan. 2013-02-04 - 2013-02-07 (Curated).

This work reprises Étienne-Jules Marey's technique of chronophotography with its original biological motivation, and yet is entirely artificial. The subject is an artificial life form composed of segmented sections comparable to the class Chilopoda (centipedes), but with trifold symmetric limbs that undulate to propel the organism through a fluid medium. The resulting forms are a product of the organism morphology, the propulsive patterns of its limbs, its predatory macro-behavior, and the viscosity and currents of the fluid it is immersed in.

Time of Doubles / Flux

Curved screen, mixed reality, artificial ecosystem.

Time of Doubles is an immersive interactive art installation. It invites visitors to experience mirror existences of themselves taking upon new roles as sources of energy and kinetic disturbance within a perpetually changing virtual ecosystem, a uniquely created computational world. Visitors encounter their doubles in an immersive world through 3D depth cameras, a surround array of active loudspeakers, and projected images. This world displays some characteristics familiar from our own, but is populated by unfamiliar life forms singing, swimming, and breeding through sensitive motions of dark fluids. The visitors’ doubles are energy fields, which emanate myriad bright fluid particles, food sources to be eaten by the virtual organisms. Visitors see, hear, and feel how they are fed to unknown species in this virtual ecosystem. Without visitors, the world-fluid is filled with life seeds that cannot grow, but with human presence the populations explode into alien orchestras of evolutionary growth. Larger organisms hunt smaller ones, leaving physical residues and films behind as they pass, which constrain the fluid flows, and which can be sculpted by visitors’ doubles as they approach them.

Exhibits:

• Toronto Media Arts Centre, Canada. Solo exhibit taking part in three co-located events: Spiral Film Philosophy Conference, VRTO Conference, Doors Open Toronto. 2019-05-17 - 2019-06-11.

• GLOBALE: Exo-Evolution. Center for Art and Media (ZKM) Mediamuseum, Karlsruhe, Germany.
  2015-10-30 - 2016-02-28 (Curated).

• Microwave International New Media Festival: Enigma. City Hall, Hong Kong. 2012-11-03 - 2012-11-25 (Curated).

• 7th Digital Art Festival Taipei 2012: Artificial Nature. Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, Digital Art Center, Taipei, Taiwan. 2012-11-06 - 2012-11-25 (Curated).

• Daejeon Biennale 2012: Energy. Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon, Korea. 2012-09-19 - 2012-11-18 (Curated).

• Bits & Pieces. AlloSphere, California NanoSystems Institute, UCSB, USA. 2012-05-29 (Curated).

• Collider 04: Spectacle. Emily Davis Art Gallery, Myers School of Art, The University of Akron. 2012-03-19 - 2012-04-13 (Curated).

• SIGGRAPH ASIA Art Gallery. Hong Kong Exhibition and Conference Centre, Hong Kong SAR. 2011-12-12 - 2011-12-15 (Juried). Presented in stereoscopic 3D.

• Questionable Utility. TransLAB, California NanoSystems Institute, Santa Barbara, USA. 2011-06-09 (Juried). Presented in stereoscopic 3D.

• Type:wall. Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (SOMA), Korea. 2011-03-31 - 2011-05-29 (Curated).
  Invited installation as one of five artworks under the theme of the architectural wall, incorporating sound, ice, breathing, shadows, and interaction.

City Life

LED media facade 78 x 99 meters, animation.

• Urban Organism: Triangle Screenscape. Seoul Square media facade. Seoul, Korea. 2011-10-11 - 2011-10-30 (Juried).

City Life (도시 생명) is a site-specific generative video for the Seoul Square venue - a media facade of 99x78m located in the heart of Seoul's cityscape. To express a 'world-as-it-could-be' in which city and artificial life coexist, it presents an biological analogue of a metropolis in which the subjects are not citizens, but the city buildings themselves.

The significant challenges of this venue include the vast size of the display, the very low resolution of pixels, and the fact that the office windows are often lit. The animation thus includes a population of virtual buildings, allowing a trompe l’oeil effect whereby the actual windows appear to be part of these virtual buildings, emphasized by the high contrast. The buildings represent a human element at a vast scale, but also animate in the form of growing and undulating life forms. Other alien organisms invade the space and consume these buildings, somewhat akin to Kaiju. A toon-shading rendering style is used to minimize the challenges of working at a low pixel resolution.

Alien Field

Generative video

Exhibited at: PROLOGUE/PROTOTYPE. Gallery Sobab, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea. April 29-May 15 2011. (Invited)

Genetic Morphologies

Generative/evolutionary 3D animation, print

Exhibited at: Cross-Reality: Traversed & Encompassed Vision. Arts & Information Center, College of Art, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Japan. Feb 20-22 2012.

Genetic Morphology Study is an initial exploration into evolutionary algorithms; a guiding aesthetic prototype for evolving populations of organisms as visual and spatial expression. The intention is to create a biological boundary form between the mathematical and the organic: modular combinations of geometric primitives developed through genetic evolution within a sculptural animation of collective behaviors. Each organismʼs morphology consists of a number of helix and hypercube modules arranged with symmetries varying according to their individual genetic code. The collective behavior of the organism is influenced by its nearest neighbor and the attractions of two ʻstarsʼ. The simulation comprised five generations of fifty agents each, produced by modeling in Maya and programming in MEL (Maya Embedded Language).

Eternal Return

Generative audio-visual simulation.

Exhibited at the Space Exploration Exhibition: Chunjin Exhibition Center. Chunjin, China. July 25-28, 2009. (Commissioned)

Fluid Space

Virtual reality artificial ecosystem.

Exhibits:

• Collider 03: Transform. Emily Davis Gallery, Akron Ohio, USA. March 22-April 16 2011. (Invited)

• Hyperbody ProtoSpace TU Delft. Technical University Delft, Holland. May 6-7 2010. (Invited)

• SIGGRAPH ASIA Art Gallery. Yokohama Pacifico Convention Center, Yokohama, Japan. December 17-19, 2009. (Juried)

• Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum (CAFA). Beijing, China. July 2009. (Invited)

• Space Exploration Exhibition: Chunjin Exhibition Center. Chunjin, China. July 25-28, 2009. (Commissioned)

• Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (SOMA): A.L.I.C.E. MUSEUM. Seoul, Korea. May 01-June 21, 2009. (Invited)

• AlloSphere. California NanoSystems Institute, Santa Barbara, USA. Various dates, 2009-2010.

Infinite Game

Interactive artificial ecosystem.

Exhibits:

• MAST: The Future of Interactive Media. Corwin Pavillion/MAT AlloSphere, University of California Santa Barbara. January 29-30 2009. (Juried)

• MAT AlloSphere. Santa Barbara, USA. January-September 2009.

• Seongnam Art Center: Universal Electronic Art. Seongnam, Korea. October-November 2008. (Invited)

• Total Museum of Contemporary Art: thisAbility vs. Disability. Seoul, Korea. July 22-August 24, 2008. (Invited)

• ASIAGRAPH 2008 Digital Gallery. Shanghai, China. Jun 27-July 1, 2008. (Invited)

Publications

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Conservation of Shadows." In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Art Gallery. ACM Digital Library, Los Angeles, USA, 2023.

• Graham Wakefield, Haru Ji. “Creative Artificial Intelligence within the Artificial Life Installation Infranet”. In Proceedings of the international Electronic Visualisation & the Arts conference, (EVA ) Online/London, UK, 2021. Youtube

• Graham Wakefield, Haru Ji. "Infranet: A Geospatial Data-Driven Neuro-Evolutionary Artwork." IEEE VIS conference, (VISAP), pp. 1-7. IEEE, Vancouver, 2019.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Conservation of Shadows: Site-Specific Shared Physicality." Proceedings of ISEA 2019, Gwangju, Korea, June 2019.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Selected Artificial Natures, 2017-2018" In Living Architecture Systems Group White Papers II. Riverside Architectural Press, 2019.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Inhabitat: an Imaginary Ecosystem in a Children’s Science Museum." Leonardo Vol. 51, No. 4, pp. 343–348, 2018. (Leonardo 50th anniversary issue, SIGGRAPH 2018 special issue)

• Graham Wakefield. "Open Worlds: Bergson And Computational Ontology." In Worldmaking as Techné: Exploring Worlds of Participatory Art, Architecture, and Music, edited by Alberto de Campo, Mark-David Hosale, Sana Murrani. Riverside Architectural Press, 2018.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Biotopes Computationnels (Computational Biotopes)" In Stream 04: Les Paradoxes du vivant (The Paradoxes of the Living), pp. 304-316 Philippe Chiambaretta Architecte, Paris, November 2017.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Recent Realizations of Artificial Nature." In Living Architecture Systems Group White Papers. Riverside Architectural Press, 2016.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Endogenous Biologically Inspired Art of Complex Systems." Computer Graphics and Applications 36, no. 1 (January, 2016): 16-21. IEEE Computer Society.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Endogenous Biologically-Inspired Visualization Immersed Within an Art of Complex Systems." In Proceedings of the IEEE VIS Arts Program (Chicago, USA), 30-37. University of Illinois at Chicago, October, 2015.

• Graham Wakefield, Tobias Höllerer, JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Charles Roberts, Matthew Wright. "Spatial Interaction in a Multiuser Immersive Instrument." Computer Graphics and Applications 33, no. 6 (November, 2013): 14-20. IEEE Computer Society.

• Graham Wakefield, Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji. "Becoming-There: Natural Presence in an Art of Artificial Ecologies." In International Symposium on Ubiquitous Virtual Reality (Daejeon, Republic of Korea), 11-14. IEEE Computer Society, July, 2013. Keynote paper.

• Woon Seung Yeo, Kyogu Lee, Alexander Sigman, Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield, eds. 13th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME 2013, Daejeon, Republic of Korea, May 27-30, 2013.

• Graham Wakefield, Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji. "Virtual World-Making in an Interactive Art Installation: Time of Doubles." In Virtual Worlds, edited by Stephan Bornhofen, Jean-Claude Heudin, Alain Lioret, Jean-Claude Torrel. Science eBook, Paris, November, 2012. Representative chapter.

• Graham Wakefield. "Real-Time Meta-Programming for Interactive Computational Arts." PhD dissertation, University of California Santa Barbara, September, 2012.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Time of Doubles." In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ASIA Art Gallery (Hong Kong), 26-26. ACM, December, 2011.

• Lance Putnam, Graham Wakefield, Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Basak Alper, Dennis Adderton, JoAnn Kuchera-Morin. "Immersed in Unfolding Complex Systems." In Beautiful Visualization: Looking at Data through the Eyes of Experts, edited by Julie Steele, Noah Iliinsky, 291-310. O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2010.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Artificial Nature." In Proceedings of the NSF Media Arts, Science and Technology Conference (Santa Barbara, USA). National Science Foundation, 2009.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Artificial Nature: Fluid Space." In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ASIA Art Gallery & Emerging Technologies: Adaptation (Yokohama, Japan), 26-26. ACM, December, 2009.

• Graham Wakefield, Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji. "Artificial nature: Immersive world making." In Theoretical Computer Science and General Issues 5484 Applications of Evolutionary Computing (The Evolutionary Music and Art Workshop, Tübingen), edited by Mario Giacobini et al., 597-602. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Artificial Nature: Research and Development." In The 2nd International Conference on Media Art and Information Aesthetics (Beijing, China). CAFA Art Museum, July, 2009.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Artificial Nature as an Infinite Game." In Proceedings of the International Symposium of Electronic Arts (Singapore), 256-258. The Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, August, 2008.

• Haru (Hyunkyung) Ji, Graham Wakefield. "Artificial Nature as an Infinite Game." In Proceedings of ASIAGRAPH (Shanghai, China). ASIAGRAPH, July, 2008.

Presentations

• Entanglement. Master of Digital Media talk series, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University: 2023-11-09

• Conservation of Shadows. Digital Arts SPARKS: Artist Talks: 2023-09-29

• Conservation of Shadows. SIGGRAPH Artist Talk. 2023-08-06

• Data Art and Immersive Artificial Ecologies with examples of Artificial Natures. Translational Data Analytics lectures, Ohio State University 2023-03-08

• Computational Creativity & AI. AIIF (Advanced Imaging & Artificial Intelligence International Festival). Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea. Online, 2022-11-05

• Creative AI within the Artificial Life Installation “Infranet” and other Artificial Natures. The Ohio State University ACCAD Data + Trends series. Online, 2022.

• Computational Creativity. Invited talk, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST). 2022-01-25.

• “Computational Worldmaking in Artificial Nature and the Alice Lab”. Invited Speaker, VRTO (Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference) Flotilla, Mozilla Hubs online (https://vrto.spatialized.events), 2021-06-04.

• Invited presentation, “Artificial Nature: Immersive Installations of Shared Realities”. School of Arts, Technology & Emerging COmmunication (ATEC) Dean’s Colloquium, (https://atec.utdallas.edu/event/deans-colloquiumharu-ji-graham-wakefield/), University of Dallas Texas, 2021-05-07.

• “Artificial Natures in Shared Realities”. Presenters & panelists, DigitalFUTURES New Media Architecture(s): A Vision for Change in the Arts, Design, & Sciences Panel (https://youtu.be/JFMgGrnTRgY). Online (Youtube/Bilibili.com), 2021-05-01.

• “Artificial Natures // Games of Life”. Guest lecture and workshop, Data+AI+Design lecture series (http://www.data-ai.design/artificial-nature.html), San Jose State University, 2021-03-12.

• Speaker & panelist. Measuring Computational Creativity. A Workshop for ISEA 2020, Montreal, Canada. 2020-08-18.

• Artificial Natures (Artist Talk). Sensilab Seminar Series, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (via Zoom). 2020-07-7

• Artist Talk, Sensorium Series, York University. 2020-02-15.

• Virtual Reality: Endless Current (Artist Talk). Bata Library, Trent University, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. 2019-11-15

• Generative Art & A-Life Art based on Artificial Nature (Artist Talk). Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea, 2019-07-11.

• Artificial Nature (Keynote/Artist Talk). Spiral Film Philosophy conference 2019, "It's Alive! Film/Form/Life". Toronto Media Arts Centre, Canada. 2019-05-17.

• Artificial Nature (Artist Talk). 307: Feral Hospitality, Sidewalk Labs, Toronto, Canada. 2019-04-02.

• Toward Playful Intelligence in Shared Reality. Living Architecture Systems Group Symposium, OCAD University, Toronto, 2019-3-1.

• Artificial Life, Artificial Nature (Artist Talk/Panel). Daejeon Biennale 2018 Bio Symposium, Daejeon Museum of Art, Korea, 2018-7-18.

• Eversive Ecologies of Artificial Nature (Artist/Panel Talk). Future Cinemas, York University, Toronto, 2018-1-18.

• A Conversation of Shadows (Artist Talk/Panel). Requiem for Hybrid Life, Seoul Museum of Art Chang-go, Seoul, Korea, 2017-10-17

• Artificial Natures (Artist talk). Weird Reality: Head-Mounted Art && Code, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, 2016-10-08

• Interactive Art: Animating Public Space (Panel talk). Media Architecture Summit 2016, TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto, Canada, 2016-09-30

• Virtual Reality Worldmaking (Lecture/workshop). Imagination Seminar, Art & Technology program, Sogang University, Korea, 2016-07-15

• Artificial Natures (Guest lecture). Future City Society, SCALe, Korea, 2016-07-13

• Artificial Natures (Guest lecture). Computational Aesthetics, School of Interactive Games & Media, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, 2016-03-07

• Data Imaginaries (Artist talk). Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvouz (LASER) / Art-Science Salon, Fields Institute, University of Toronto, Canada, 2015-11-19

• Artificial Nature: Mixed-Reality Ecosystem (Construction of Aesthetic Experience) (Forum talk). Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) Science Communication Forum, Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Sobaek Optical Astronomy Observatory, Republic of Korea, 2015.07.08 - 2015.07.10

• Becoming There: Immersed in Computation (Artist talk). Sensorium Lecture Series, York University, Toronto, Canada, 2015-02-24

• Becoming There: Immersed in Computation (Panel). Exploring the Frontiers of Science & Technology, York University, Toronto, Canada, 2015-01-28

• Becoming There: Nature-Like Worldmaking (Lecture). Hongik University, Korea, 2013-11-20

• Becoming There: Nature-Like Worldmaking (Lecture). TAC, Seoul Art Institute, Korea, 2013-11-20

• Generative Art and Notgames (Symposium talk). AliceOn New Media Art Symposium: Next Level of Art Game, 더 미디엄, The Medium, Yonhee, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Korea, 2013-10-19

• Becoming There (Artist talk). Cornerstone Arts Center, Colorado Springs, USA, 2013-08-20

• Natural Presence in an Art of Artificial Ecologies (Artist talk). Korea Institute for Science and Technology (KIST), Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea, 2013-07-09

• Open-Endedness in Computational Art (Tech talk). SIGGRAPH Asia Tech Talks, Hong Kong Exhibition and Conference Center, Hong Kong, 2011-12

• Creating Artificial Natures (Forum talk). The 9th Techno-Aesthetic Forum: From Artificial Intelligence Art to Artificial Life Art, Humanist publishing, Seoul, Korea, 2011-06

• Creating an Artificial Nature as an Open World (Forum talk). The 5th Seoul DMC Media Forum, Media Arts and Technology Interdisciplinary Series, KGIT (Korean Graduate Institute of Technology), Seoul, Korea, 2011-05

• Creating an Artificial Nature as a Generative Art (Artist talk). School of Digital Media, Duksung Women's University, Seoul, Korea, 2011-05

• Creating an Open World as an Infinite Game (Artist talk). Computer Science Colloquium, University of Akron, USA, 2011-04

• Artificial Natures: Creating Nature-Like Aesthetic Experiences through Immersive Artificial Life Worlds (Guest lecture). Digital Art, University of Akron, USA, 2011-02

• Media Arts, Technology, and Artificial Nature (Artist Talk). Electronic Music Studios, Goldsmiths University of London, UK, 2009-08

• Artificial Nature & Evolutionary Art (Lecture). Laboratory of Future Media Art, ChungAng University, Seoul, Korea, 2008-07

• Currents in Media Arts and Technology (Lecture). Department of Media Art Aesthetics and Technology, Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea, 2008-07

Media & Academic Review

• 2024: “Conservation of Shadows: Los Angeles” is featured in an issue of "Digital, Interactive and Visual Arts" in the Journal of The Society for Art and Science (Vol.56, 2024 Summer), (ISSN 2189-0587), Tokyo, Japan.

• 2023: Artificial Nature interviewed and featured in the final TV episode of the Digi-Art series, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), about digital technologies used in arts. The episode features two artist teams working in immersive and ecosystemic arts. https://www.cbc.ca/arts/digi-art-virtual-reality-episode-5-1.6852962

• 2023: Book: “BioMedia: The Age of Media with Life-like Behaviour”, edited by Peter Weibel, published by Spector Books, 320pp. Includes a 4-page feature on our Artificial Nature project “Conservation of Shadows”, among sixty artists exploring algorithms, artificial life, and AI in arts, drawn from the research exhibition BioMedia at ZKM Karlsruhe. https://zkm.de/en/publication/biomedia

• 2021: Artificial Nature is the topic of the book chapter “Artificial Nature of Haru Ji and Graham Wakefield”, pp. 230-249, in Hyesook Jeon, “Anthropocene Art: Changes in Ecology, Life, and Body”, Ewha Institute for the Humanities Book Series, Eco-Techne, Aug 2021. http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/product/detailViewKor.laf?mallGb=KOR&ejkGb=KOR&barcode=9791160686050

• 2021: 12 pages featuring six Artificial Nature works in quarterly literary magazine ‘Backjo’, Fall 2021, 노작홍사용문학관, ISSN 2765-0987

• 2020: Artificial Nature Infranet is analyzed in the chapter 8 “AI art: human and machine symbiosis” by Kyungmi Kim, Mijung Kang, as part of the book “AI and Post humanism”, Seoul City University Future Edition, ISBN 9788961473774(8961473778) http://m.yes24.com/Goods/Detail/96030943

• 2020: Hyesook Jeon, “Ecosystem Embodied from the Technology of Artificial Life: Focusing on the “Artificial Nature” of Haru Ji and Graham Wakefield”, 『Korea Association for History of Modern Art (현대미술사연구)』 제47집 (2020. 6), pp. 7-37 https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART002601598

• 2019: Statement role of art and creativity for now and future of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and ethical issues around them, as part of the “Paradox: Frames and Biases” panel at the Miller ICA, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, Jan. 28 2019.

• 2018: The Artificial Nature project is used as the principal theme and inspiration of a week-long exhibition and workshop series SENSE VI “BIOTOPIA”, in the city of Medellin, Columbia. Our work is featured in the primary national newspapers and magazines (Domingo, Semana). https://www.humanese.co/sensevi

• 2017 (Forthcoming) Media Art in Korea, BookKorea press. Interviewed as one of 30 representative contemporary/media artists in Korea by recommendations by an expert panel in the Korean Media Art Database Project. The interview was carried out in Seoul, Jul 18th 2016.

• 2015: Space magazine, Korea. Six-page full colour feature on Archipelago, and rear cover image, for this leading architecture journal. http://www.vmspace.com/2008_re/kor/sub_emagazine_view.asp?category=artndesign&idx=11961

• 2014: Misul Seagae (Art World), Korea. Special Feature “Play & Art”: introduced among two selected artists teams in the area of interactive art.

• 2014: Art in America magazine, Feb 2014 issue. Artificial Nature referred to in “Art for the Anthropocene Era”, Eleanor Heartney

• 2013: The Science Times online, Korea. Similarities and differences in art and game: Next Level of Art-Game, Yoenhee Kim. http://www.sciencetimes.co.kr/?s=%EC%A7%80%ED%95%98%EB%A3%A8

• 2013: 뉴미디어 아트와 게임 예술 (New Media Art & Game Art), Book by 유원준 (Wonjun Yu), ISBN 978-89-6680-153-4 93680: features Artificial Nature and Time of Doubles as exemplary work crossing boundaries between new media art and video games. Time of Doubles was also chosen for the cover image.

• 2012: Time of Doubles: Interview with Graham Wakefield and Haru Ji, by Tenn Bun-ki Tenn. http://www.heath.tw/nml-article/time-of-doubles-interview-with-graham-wakefield-and-haru-ji/

• 2012: Tech Watch, Reuters News. Time of Doubles in SIGGRAPH ASIA selected as “one of best recent pictures from the world of science and technology.” http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/tech-watch?articleId=USRTR2V72I

• 2011: SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 website: http://siggraph.org/asia2011. Time of Doubles selected as the representative image of the Art Gallery.

• 2011: Aesthetics of Sustainable Architecture, 010 Publishers, Holland. Book collection edited by Sang Lee. Cover art is imagery of Artificial Nature: Fluid Space.

• 2011: THE URBAN ORGANISM Exhibition Catalog, Korea. Article “The City and the Environment as Organisms, and the Media Façade Project” featuring City Life by Yeon-Shim Chung, Art Critic.

• 2011: NSF National Science Foundation online: Discoveries, USA. Article “The AlloSphere Offers an Interactive Experience of Nano-sized Worlds”: Introducing Artificial Nature: Fluid Space and the Center for Nanomedicine Project along with other AlloSphere projects.

• 2011: AliceOn Net, Seoul, Korea. Interview with AliceOn, http://aliceon.tistory.com/1786. AliceOn is Korea’s primary media art and art-science culture channel (website and publication house) since 2004.

• 2009: Scientific American. Article "A 360-Degree Virtual Reality Chamber Brings Researchers Face to Face with Their Data" by Julian Smith features work in the three-story-high AlloSphere in which scientists can climb inside a life-size interaction with their research. Artificial Nature is featured.

• 2009: TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design), Los Angeles. Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin presents “Stunning data visualization in the AlloSphere”, an entirely new way to see and interpret scientific data in surround sound inside a massive metal sphere, featuring Artificial Nature as one of five projects ongoing in the AlloSphere.

Haru Ji (South Korea/Canada)

Haru Ji is a media artist and co-creator of the research project “Artificial Nature”, exploring the subject of life in art through artificial life worldmaking: a form of computational generative art creating and evolving virtual ecosystems as immersive environments. She holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California Santa Barbara, an MFA and BFA from Seoul National University, and studied image engineering, computer graphics and 3D animation at Chung-Ang University, both in Seoul, Korea. She is an Associate Professor in the Experimental Animation program at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada, and was previously Assistant Professor of Art & Technology in the School of Consilience at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea. Her computational installations, digital sculptures, virtual architecture, video installations, sculptural objects and 3D animations have been shown in art festivals, conferences, and venues including ZKM, La Gaite Lyrique, SIGGRAPH, VIFF, ISEA, EvoWorkshops, CAFA, MOXI, the AlloSphere, and Seoul City Hall, and recognized in the 2015 VIDA Art & Artificial Life competition and the 2017 Kaleidoscope Virtual Reality showcase.

haruoneday@gmail.com

Graham Wakefield (UK/Canada)

Graham Wakefield's research has evolved from computer music composition to the generation of open-ended environments for exploratory experience, emphasizing continuation over closure. This work is expressed through software design for creative coding, and immersive artworks of artificial ecosystems (both leveraging live system evolution through dynamic compilation). He is Associate Professor in the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design and Canada Research Chair of Computational Worldmaking at York University, Toronto, where he runs the Alice Lab. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Warwick UK, a Master in Composition from Goldsmiths College University of London, UK and a Ph.D in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California Santa Barbara, USA. Graham played a central role in the development of software systems and authoring content for the AlloSphere: a three storey spherical multi-user immersive instrument in the California Nano-Systems Institute. Graham is also a software developer for Cycling '74, co-authoring the Gen extension for the widely-used media arts environment Max/MSP/Jitter. His works and publications have been performed, exhibited and presented at international events including SIGGRAPH, ICMC, NIME, EvoWorkshops and ISEA.

grrrwaaa@gmail.com