“Proteus, thus large thy privilege was found,
Thou inmate of the seas, which Earth surround.
Sometimes a bloming youth you grac’d the shore;
Oft a fierce lion, or a furious boar:
With glist’ning spires now seem’d an hissing snake,
The bold would tremble in his hands to take:
With horns assum’d a bull; sometimes you prov’d
A tree by roots, a stone by weight unmov’d:
Sometimes two wav’ring contraries became,
Flow’d down in water, or aspir’d in flame.”
***
Metamorphoses, Ovid, Book the Eighth, The Changes of Proteus. Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al
***
Proteus is an ongoing project carried out since 2018 by Maria Smigielska and Pierre Cutellic stemming from artistic research at the chair of CAAD, ETH Zürich and Creative Robotics UfG Linz. Additional support has come from Johannes Braumann, Robots in Architecture, KUKA Robotics, Ars Electronica SMC CEE, supermagnete (Proteus 1.0 and 2.0), Trondheim Electronic Arts Center TEKS and Daniel Nikles for fabrication development (Proteus 2.5).
proteus 4.1
Contemplating in a cloud
4.1 version evolved its mode of interaction towards a web-based application using gaze-tracking in personal mobile devices and its architectural counterpart as a modular and non-site-specific installation embodying interactions happening fluently across the digital infrastructure in a single physical space.
As a direct reference to post-war architectural megastructures and the concept of ‘proteinic architecture’ from Yona Friedman in the 70’s last century, the installation mirrors the internet’s distributed nature by spatial articulations of scattered digital screens and mirrors in a modular manner. Reflections on rippled metal panels strengthen the immersive character of the installation and the golden material used drives us back to the greek mythology of Proteus and his ability to reveal precious secrets and truths upon capturing.
The installation takes the shape of a shimmering ocean pouring out in the gallery space as a recall of internet digital infrastructure and a natural habitat of our prophetic deity. The interactive visuals are based on the constantly changing behaviour of digitized ferrofluid, which conveys the idea of uncertainty in human interactions. Observing a slow-paced evolution of ferropatterns encourages AI-powered mindfulness to counter the digital age’s attention economy characterized by distraction and information overload.
Exhibited at:
Ars Electronica Festival 2024 04-08.09.2024 &
ESC ” WHO IS PLAYING WITH US?” 28.09-15.11.2024
Contemplating in the cloud
Credits:
Artists: Maria Smigielska (PL/CH), CompMonks (PL/CH)
Software development: Rostyslav Bohomaz, Mihael Giba, Juraj Komericki,
Physical installation production 2023: William Linn
Physical installation production 2024: esc medien kunst labor and Ars Electronica
Interactive web-based reaction-diffusion based on the development by Linus Mossberg
This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency program at KONTEJNER | bureau of Contemporary Art Praxis with support from the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union. The physical installation has been further developed in 2024 with the support from esc medien kunst labor and Ars Electronica.
proteus 4.0
“Proteus 4.0”, 2023. Interactive, generative, online and onsite installation, gaze based.
While former versions of the series were designing a single mode of interaction for a single physical space, we have now shifted to web based-interactions enacted by personal devices. The communication between the artwork and its beholders thus spans across the diversity of personal time dynamics and detaches itself from the walls of the museum. Embedded sensors in each of these personal devices also allow for a finer grain of face and gaze information, and a more sophisticated interaction powered by AI. Conceived as an immersive and non-site-specific installation, it combines both the plethora of interactions happening on the web and its direct experience “on-site” with a dedicated interactive device. To extend the aesthetic vocabulary crafted across the series, this new version expresses the aspects of distribution through the design of spatially scattered displays embedded in a spaceframe. Individual display cells are complemented with reflexive and transparent panels across the space to render a unified spatial experience that occurs anywhere and anytime across the networked planet.
Created by: Maria Smigielska CompMonks
Software development: Mihael Giba, Juraj Komericki
Physical installation production: William Linn
Curatorial support: Tereza Teklic , Olga Mjcen Linn
Videography: Patrik Pažur, Lara Bajkuša
Interactive web-based reaction-diffusion based on the development by Linus Mossberg (https://linusmossberg.github.io/)
This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform @european_media_art_platform residency program at KONTEJNER | bureau of Contemporary Art Praxis @kontejner_org with support from the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union
proteus 3.5
Contemplating in a cloud
This time, Proteus is an interactive and generative installation that allows the visitors to interact with a large scale digitized ferromaterial through their brain activities. A Muse BCI device measures the neural activity and adapts the image of the ferromaterial accordingly, facilitating a more intense material- human interaction. A visual experience is strenghtened though the image reflections and refractions inside of an immersive, architecture-scale Portal.
Proteus has been commissioned by the Copernicus Science Center for a third chapter of a brand new permanent exhibition – “The Future is Today”, titled „Human 2.0”.
Created by: Maria Smigielska, CompMonks
BCI sposnsorship: Muse
CSC team: Niko Krawczyk- Zielinski, Barbara Malinowska-Pohoryles, Micha. Grzymala
Videography: Thierry Serbeto, Alpha Leonis Production
proteus 3.0
Digitizing Matter with Mixed Intelligences
Concept & development
Maria Smigieska, Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic)
Proteus 3.0 employs a realtime generated reaction-diffusion algorithm as a surrogate of a ferrofluid material, as one of the core components of the Proteus series . It employs reinforcement learning algorithm to increase visitors’ engagement while interacting with this digital matter displayed in a form of a large monolithic oculus in an exhibition context.
Created as part of the intelligent.museum project at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and at the Deutsches Museum.
Funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner für Culture and Media). Co-funded by “BioMedia” ZKM.
Videography: Thierry Serbeto
proteus 2.0
Modulating Matter with Mixed Intelligences
Proteus is an installation that modulates ferrofluid patterns, with both human and machine intelligences, in a closed loop. Through an individual and prolonged visual experience, it immerses the visitor in an implicit interaction with the material through a brain-computer interface. A pre-trained dedicated machine learning model is informed by real-time neural signals, produced by the visitor’s gaze while being exposed to the rapid serial change of patterns without any explicit instructions to follow. Over the time of the gaze experience, visitors may witness a certain stabilisation of their own modulated picture of the material.
This model not only modulates the ferrofluid display over time but also slowly builds a digital motion picture of its behaviour. All the recorded sequences are then displayed separately to exhibit the variety of patterns collected throughout the period of the festival. The project infers on digitally encoded material properties with the use of a computational mixture of both human and machine vision models.
Proteus 2.0 @ Ars Electronica Festival “Error” 2018, Linz AT team:
Concept:
Maria Smigieska (CR UfG)
Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic) (CAAD ITA ETHz )
Development:
Maria Smigielska- design, fabrication
Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic)- design, fabrication
Johannes Braumann- fabrication support & advisory
Wesley Lee- electronics advisor
Project partners:
Creative Robotics UfG Linz, CAAD ETH Zurich
Project sponsors:
SMC CEE, supermagnete
photo & video: Maria Smigielska
video edit: Maria Smigielska
music: deef – nostalgia of an ex-gangsta rapper
proteus 2.1
Lab30, New Media Art Festival, Augsburg DE, 2019
The project is based on the development of artistic research at Creative Robotics UfG Linz and CAAD ETH Zurich.
Concept:
Maria Smigieska, Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic)
Development:
Maria Smigielska- fabrication
Daniel Nikles- fabrication support
photo & video: Maria Smigielska, Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic)
video edit: Maria Smigielska
music: Niobe “Lalu Lalu”
proteus 2.5
Meta.Morf X, 6th Trondheim Biennale for Arts and Technology, Tr. Kunstmuseum, NO, 2020
Concept, design:
Maria Smigielska, Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic)
Development:
Daniel Nikles- electronics design and development, fabrication
Maria Smigielska- fabrication
Photo credits: Espen Gangvik, Juliane Schütz, Maria Smigielska
Production support: TEKS (Trondheim Electronic Arts Center)
Curation: Espen Gangvik
proteus 1.0
Modulating Matter with Intuitive Interaction
It is an experiment on the modulation of ferrofluid patterns controlled by magnetic field controlled by a robotic interface. It modulates the patterns according to the audience interaction based on realtime face tracking data. Similarly to digital displays it is based on grid, but the material ferropixel presents a much richer gradient of emerging patterns.
Exhibited at Ars Electronica Center during Creative Robotics exhibition (curation Johannes Braumann, Kristina Maurer) Linz, AT 05.2018- 07.2018
_
Concept:
Maria Smigieska (CR UfG)
Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic) (CAAD ITA ETHz )
_
Development:
Maria Smigielska- design, fabrication, robotics
Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic)- design, fabrication
Johannes Braumann – robotics
Barlomiej Doros – chemistry advisor
Wesley Lee- electronics advisor
_
Project partners:
Creative Robotics UfG Linz, CAAD ETH Zurich
_
Project sponsors:
KUKA Robotics, Robots in Architecture, Ars Electronica Center
_
music: Jo Noon “October”
video: Johannes Braumann, Compmonks (Pierre Cutellic)
video edit: Maria Smigielska
Proteus obtained 8th place at CreativeApplications.net 2018 -Highlights and Favourites
media
PUBLICATIONS
Smigielska M., Cutellic P. “Proteus 3.0: Reinforcement learning for intuitive interaction with digitized matter”, ISEA, Paris 2024 (in print)
BOOKS:
Smigielska M., “Proteus” in “Architecture and Naturing Affairs” , An M., Hovestadt L. (Eds), Birkauser, 2020
