Physarum Polycephalum at Ars Electronica - Prof. Dr. Michael Markert

The 2013 Ars Electronica Festival of Media Art shows an artwork by Theresa Schubert, Michael Markert, and Moritz Dreßler. The installation in the Brucknerhaus Linz invites to interact with a computer simulation that assigns configurations of human moles to the protoplasmic tissue of an acellular slime mold (Physarum polycephalum) and thus applies an alternative method of decentralized cell organization to the human body.

»Physarum Polycephalum« is a Slime Mold Simulation, where users have to place their arms on an interactive desk. The arm is analyzed by an image processing algorithm, which was created by Moritz Dreßler. Then virtual slime molds are growing out of detected beauty spots and moles with an HDR projection right on the skin. Theresa Schubert has been researching and working with Slime Molds for many years and invited Michael Markert for a collaboration, who researched human interactions and the relevance of skin contact already with his work »Kontaktstation«. Michael contributed to the concept by suggesting to project the simulation directly onto the skin, as well as  implemented an updated slime mold growing algorithm to work in real time with a multi-user table.

Video footage shot during premiere show at Ars Electronica festival 2013.
Camera & Editing: Theresa Schubert, bodymetries.net (Source: Vimeo)

»…mapping the human body through amorphous intelligence […] explores the spatial logic of the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. It is a generative projection environment and interactive application for body-morphology computation based on the behaviour of this amorphous organism.« – Theresa Schubert

The internationally renowned Ars Electronica Festival runs from September 5th to 9th in Linz, Austria.