“It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!”
-Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”
“Hylozoic Soil” by Philip Beesley
I don't generally feel that capital-a Art, as found in museums and galleries, is for me. It seems to stuffy, too elitist, too old fashioned or wilfully un-technological. When it does use technology, it often seems like exploitation, some clever artist coming up with a grand idea and getting someone else to execute. Some of the pieces in the e-art exhibition felt that way. Some of the pieces even felt exploitative. Even if a traditional installation artist doesn't know Second Life from Quake, that does not make an exhibition in SL, staged by that artist, revolutionary. It may be her own personal revolution, but what should make me care about that?
It's a good thing “Hylozoic Soil” was positioned at the entrance to the exhibition. In comparison to the bulk of the other pieces (with some exceptions), “Hylozoic Soil” majorly stands out. More importantly, judged on it's own merits, it still stands out. For me, at least, walking through that beautiful cocoon was a transcendent experience. And those are hard to come by, these days. I could accurately describe it as gorgeous. I could say that it makes me believe in Art.
In appearance, “Hylozoic Soil” resembles nothing more than the deepest recesses of the digestive system of some beautiful, mythical animal. It could also be a strange ecosystem, buried so deep in the ocean, so light starved, that it has no pigment. Or, it could be the “sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice” that Coleridge mentioned. Whichever simile you use, “Hylozoic Soil” simply does a beautiful job of being beautiful. It stands out, spectre-like, glowing delicately, being the definition of the word “ephemeral,” in the dark.
On a more technical and pragmatic level, it appeals to me that the Arduino boards -which are used to control the light and the reach-out-and-touch-you fronds- are themselves a piece of open source hardware. It makes the whole thing appeal on an intellectual level, in addition to the strong emotional impact of the piece itself.
While many of the pieces in the exhibition could be controlled directly by the viewer, I think “Hylozoic Soil” benefits from not being so straight forward. It operates on a more implicit than explicit level. There is no one way to interact with it. There is no direct and overriding control. After all, it wouldn't be transcendently beautiful if you could actually control it.