Artificial Nature is a research project and an evolving series of art installations by Haru Ji and Graham Wakefield.
Haru Ji is a TransArtist and researcher exploring the subject of life in art through Artificial Life Worldmaking: a form of computational generative art creating and evolving virtual ecosystems as immersive environments. She holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California Santa Barbara and is an assistant professor of Art & Technology in the School of Consilience at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea. She attained a Master and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Seoul National University, and studied image engineering, computer graphics and 3D animation at Chung-Ang University, both in Seoul, Korea. She has exhibited computational installations, digital sculptures, virtual architecture, video installations, sculptural objects and 3D animations at exhibitions and art festivals worldwide including ISEA, EvoWorkshops, and SIGGRAPH, with corresponding publications. She is a co-creator of the research project and immersive ecosystem “Artificial Nature”, exploring the expansion of media art towards ‘art-as-it-could-be’. It is an amalgam of play, research, and art, which raises novel and significant questions regarding the trans-disciplinary interpretation of both subjective beauty and objective truth in art and biology.
Graham Wakefield‘s research has evolved from computer music composition to the generation of open-ended environments for exploratory experience, emphasizing continuation over closure. This work is expressed through software design for creative coding, and immersive artworks of artificial ecosystems (both leveraging live system evolution through dynamic compilation). He is Assistant Professor in the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design at York University, Toronto, and holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Warwick UK, a Master in Composition from Goldsmiths College University of London, UK and a Ph.D in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California Santa Barbara, USA. Graham played a central role in the development of software systems and authoring content for the AlloSphere: a three storey spherical multi-user immersive instrument in the California Nano-Systems Institute. Graham is also a software developer for Cycling ’74, co-authoring the Gen extension for the widely-used media arts environment Max/MSP/Jitter. His works and publications have been performed, exhibited and presented at international events including SIGGRAPH, ICMC, NIME, EvoWorkshops and ISEA.