Tree of Digital Life. New Environmental Imagining is a group show curated by Carmen Casiuc, which brings together three installations by digital artists Thea Lazar, George Crîngaşu and Matei Dumitriu, with two concepts of environmentally sustainable design by Andreea Brăescu and Luisa Balaban. The exhibition reimagines Nature and our relationship with it from the perspective of the economical, organizational and cultural transformations ignited by the new era of digital globalization. The access that technologies give humanity to understanding the subtile, yet potent forces at play in his environment is a burdening freedom. In exchange of her innocent belief in natural phenomena, it allows her to control and simulate natural systems; and her demi-god like creativity actively participates in the evolution of herself and the natural environment in unforseen ways. Within our current digital era, the information and communication technologies generate digital environments, allowing us full control of all the other ecosystems that exist within them. Variables that were once only provided by natural systems can now be digitized and simulated in real life by humans. Networks of data produce communicational flows from one environment to the other, such that the barrier between the natural and the artificial starts to dissolve. Subtitled New Environmental Imagining, the exhibition looks at the metaphor of “Tree of Life”, one sacred symbol which offered various civilizations across time a world model that considered the importance of the interconnectedness of humans with their terrestrial and cosmic environments as a meaningful resort for achieving an equilibrated living. A techo-positive orchard of Trees of Digital Life, New Environmental Imagining evokes a conceptual space at the meeting point of natural sciences, interior design, multimedia art and mythology, where the idea of natural scenery emerges as a product of the indivisible fusion between technological, biological and societal systems. As our species is finally beginning to learn that treating the environment as though it exists solely for humanity is a self-defeating habit, our perception shifts from an essentialist view of matter to one of dynamic processes which generate the conditions of fertile environments. The artists and designers invited here reflect upon future possible ecological ingeneerings emerging from the digitized interactions between various life forms, with a focus on the nonhuman ecosystems responsible for the conservation and development of life. Through their works, each contributes to aesthetically rethink concepts such as landscape, sustainability, ambient and the artificial, articulating meaningful intersections between ecology, technology and philosophy, nonhuman nature, environment and human history. Within this atmosphere, the horizon opens beyond the traditional dichotomy of analog vs. digital, organic vs. technologic. The global civilization is imagined as achieving the equilibrium between the conservation of nature’s principles and the sustainable development of its environmental capital with the help of new technologies.

Nost.Algae is an environmentally sustainable research project by Luisa Balaban exploring the aesthetical, environmental and socio-economical possibilities of natural textile dyeing with pigments extracted from a variety of algae and various alimentary compounds. Having studied Graphics at the University of Art in Bucharest and obtaining an MA in Sustainable Textile Design at Chelsea College of Arts, University of Arts in London, Luisa focuses on the cross-pollination of biotechnology, art and design. In her practice, living organisms form an integral part of harnessing and manipulating natural processes to fulfill our aesthetical needs while simultaneously minimizing the ecological disruption caused by the fine arts, fashion and food industries. Her ecological dyeing processes aim to reduce the toxic waste caused by synthetic pigments, decrease the environmentally damaging techniques based on the exploitation of natural resources and contribute the reduction of mass carbon footprint. During the workshop, the audience is invited to experiment directly with a variety of eco-friendly pigments while creatively recycling their old clothing garments. Both ancestral textile coloring methods and biodesign based practices will be teached by the artist. For the best results, the participants are asked to bring garments made of natural fibers, such as cotton, silk, viscose, linen. The workshop is a complementary event to the current exhibition at Halucinarium, Tree of Digital Life. New Environmental Imagining, a group show with Thea Lazar, George Crîngaşu, Matei Dumitriu, Andreea Brăescu and Luisa Balaban, curated by Carmen Casiuc, which explores Nature and our relationship with it from the perspective of the economical, organizational and cultural transformations ignited by the use of new technologies. Special acknowledgements to Dr. Claudio Fuentes Grunewald from Swansea University, Center for sustainable aquatic research and Prof. Saul Purton, Director of Algae UK, based in the UCLA, Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology for support and freeze dryed algae biomass.