Juan Azulay / Matter Management: Vivarium

Opening Reception: Friday, April 2, 7-9pm in the SCI-Arc Gallery Juan Azulay's experimental installation in the SCI-Arc Gallery explores the relationship between technology, media, and environmental preservation. It incisively speaks to the inherent connection between technology and the environment as a whole. Working for the past number of years on hybrid designs that harness natural phenomena and connect them to new architectural ideas, Azulay's exhibition reflects a shift in the experience of "life" directly to an experience of a media-augmented environment, in which flows of energy regulate processes and generate culture. Juan Azulay's project involves a monolithic sunken pyramid that contains a 'vivarium,' or collection of organisms that in this case are real, robotic and/or simulated. As a collective, they generate energy capable of transforming water into salt - made possible by the permeability control that the skin of the pyramid produces. Virtual (digital) organisms mimic the behavior of the both the living and robotic microorganisms. Investigating the physical and metaphoric space between biology and architecture, the installation will fuse these organisms within the vivarium, creating a new hybrid ecology that will grow and self-stabilize throughout the exhibition period of three months. SCI-Arc