Expanded 3D animations, synchronized multichannel installation, ecosystems, food and ecology, food chains, energy flows, transformation, regeneration, speculative fiction, relationality, conviviality, creative visualizations, futurity, possibilities, research-creation.
ABOUT THE PROJECT – 2024 – 25
'BichEden: ParaDoxa' crosses boundaries between video, 3D animation, and media installation. Exhibited as triptychs with 9 displays, the work engages climate storytelling to explore the edge of physical and digital realms within biological food chains. Informed by efforts to regenerate these in three Mexican ecosystems, 'BichEden: Oceanic Banquet' imagines new colonies of delicate organisms in a restored Great Mayan Reef; 'BichEden: Rainforest' imagines a reconditioned Mayan Forest informed by Lacandon cosmology and curative herbology; and 'BichEden: Alpine' imagines a scenario in the Iztaccíhuatl volcano with adaptable organisms that, like Sleeping Beauty, sleep and come back to life when conditions are favorable. Mexico (my former home) is considered a world example of biodiversity - making my use of Mexican terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems a perfect way to punctuate urgency; to entice, entangle, and expand worldwide understanding of ecological interdependence. At the project's base are Red List databases that catalog endangered species facing a decline in flora and fauna, affecting ecological food chains. A selection of these endangered species is digitally reorganized, recombined, merged, grafted, operated upon, and re-rooted. This process results in computer-generated 'still life' artifacts' that re-imagine species interactions in these restored sites. They retain enough actuality to make them plausible, evoking alternative worlds that involve counterfactual sequences and fictional formations. These 'science fiction' readings draw from mythical, spiritual, historical, scientific, and technological indicators, underscoring the tremendous influence of electronic technologies and the sciences in shaping individual and cultural perceptions made visible in expanded understandings of materiality, immaterialities, realities, intelligence, and data.
'BichEden: ParaDoxa' multichannel, synchronized video installation composed of 9 displays. 3D visualization showing three “BichEden” triptychs.
'BichEden: Oceanic Banquet' (2023-24) characterizes endangered species in Coral Reef ecologies. It is one of the three BichEden triptychs in a multichannel video installation to be completed in 2025.
'BichEden: Rainforest' (2024-25) characterizes endangered species in rainforest ecologies. It is one of the three BichEden triptychs in a multichannel video installation to be completed in 2025.
'BichEden: Alpine' (2024-25) characterizes endangered species in Alpine ecologies. It is one of the three BichEden triptychs in a synchronized multichannel video installation.
Viewers enter an enclosed, darkened space and encounter a dynamic installation of black-and-white expanded animations that blend visual, auditory, and spatial elements characterizing terrestrial and oceanic organisms. The exhibition layout is designed to guide visitors by installing 9 flatscreens grouped in triptychs. The three distinct groups of flatscreens - each representing oceanic, rainforest, and alpine ecosystems - have nature soundscapes that complement the visual content delivered through speakers on each grouping. Synchronization between the video and audio makes the installation feel unified despite the content being divided across multiple screens. Two displays in each group are placed in ‘portrait’ orientation -edge to edge at 130 degrees from each other- creating corners where the edges of mirrored videos meet, uncannily unfolding into seemingly emergent entities. The third screen in each group is placed on the floor, the ceiling, and leaning against the wall to guide the visitor’s navigation and gaze: looking up, down, to the side. The arrangement of the screens and the coordinated audiovisual content invite viewers to engage the animations from various angles, offering a layered and complex visual and auditory experience.
THE MAKING OF THE PROJECT
(Left image) Documents showing the 'making of' BichEden: Pat Badani in collaboration with Dr. Gabrielle Beans (Scientific Advisor) and with Mariel Martinez (Computer Engineer).
(Right image) Pat Badani delivering a lecture about the project during 'Symbiosis' @ ISEA2023 symposium and exhibition held in Paris (May 2023). Badani’s paper is published in ISEA’23 proceedings: 'The Bichi project: Symbiotic Food Networks & The Alchemist Kitchen.'