Artworks
Greenhouse Converter, 2010
Ursula Damm
Germany
Interactive installation (aquarium, custom made LED-Displays, operating terminal, water fountain)
Ursula Damm (DE). Greenhouse Converter, 2010. Interactive installation, image courtesy the artist. 2010 Ursula Damm
Water enriched with atmospheric gases, especially carbon dioxide, is pumped from a fountain via an air supply into an aquarium. This aerated water feeds an algal culture which – influenced by light – produces biomass and oxygen from the carbon dioxide. The blue light in the aquarium reads as the word “beloved”, which is a reference to the endosymbiosis theories of Lynn Margulis. The water fleas eat the algae adhering to the display. The word therefore remains visible. If the algae growth is excessive though, the ecological balance is likely to tip over. The legibility of the word “beloved” serves then as the index of this little ecosystem’s state or rather of its relationship with the greater external biosphere.
Credits: Deutsche Botschaft Laibach
greenhouse converter from resoutionable on Vimeo.
Biography
Ursula Damm (b. 1960, Boppard, Germany) is an artist and a researcher. She has become known for her installations dealing with geometry and its social impact on public space. Since 1995 these installations became interactive, dealing with architectural aspects on the basis of tracking technology of closed circuit video cameras (www.inoutsite.de) from public places. Aside she developed numerous installation on the relationship of nature, science and civilization like Venus I–IV (part of the collection of the Ludwig-Museum Koblenz) or double helix swing (honorary mention Ars Electronica 2006). Ursula Damm has had solo exhibitions at the Goethe House in New York, at NeuerAachenerKunstverein, Aachen and at the Kunstsammlung NRW Düsseldorf, K20 Germany (at the fountain wall). Currently she works on an interactive installation and setting for a public place at the Metro-Station Schadowstrasse in Düsseldorf, Germany. Since 2008 she holds the chair of Media Environments (Media Arts&Design) at the Media Faculty of the Bauhaus-University Weimar.
