DIGITAL WALL EXHIBITION: COENOSARCOID

DIGITAL WALL EXHIBITION: COENOSARCOID

The Digital Wall in the Bunjil Place Foyer is a digital gallery space that exhibits video art and generative works. Over the next 3 months we present the generative video work Coenosarcoid by John Power. Coined in 1965 by the German philosopher Max Bense, the term generative art describes works based on an algorithmic code or a mathematical formula. Generative art is made through a set of rules that automates the output where there is usually randomness embedded in the algorithm. The process is defined by the artist, and the output is a sort of machine and artist collaboration.  

Bunjil Place Foyer
18 June  - 30 September 2024

Coenosarcoid  

John Power, digital generative, 2015.

Coenosarcoid is a generative artwork showing an animated field of flocking forms arcing in clusters of branching movement. This algorithmic movement builds up thickets of saturated and delineated colour, like an abstracted stain glass window. Continually changing and overwriting itself, any given sequence will only ever be seen once. This work is part of the artist’s practice exploring large public screens as ambient calm technologies, where biophilic patterns are creatively used to support attention and foster public placemaking. The title is derived from ‘Coenosarc’, the name for protoplasmic branches connecting the polyps of colonial organisms, such as corals.
 

John Power is a new media artist, teacher, producer, and interdisciplinary researcher with a background in visual art, spectacle, digital placemaking, and creative community engagement. A senior lecturer in the School Design, RMIT University, Power’s award‐winning time-based practice in video and public installations incorporates generative Art, real‐time VR, AR, VFX, and ambient screen media that has toured and exhibited in Australia and internationally. His research explores the use of public digital screens as Calm Technology for attention restoration and placemaking.