Entangled Others, aka Sofia Crespo and Feileacan, focus on the relationships between non-human life forms, technological infrastructure and computational processes. Their (di)atomic garden draws inspiration from a series of experiments conducted after the Second World War, the ‘atomic gardens’, in which plants were exposed to radioactive materials to induce genetic mutations, some of which still exist today. The work takes the form of a real-time performative system that harnesses radioactivity as a generative and mutagenic force. Here, two seemingly disparate biological archives (images of historical agricultural crops and samples of Antarctic marine plankton) are converted into a sort of digital genetic code and brought together within a virtual garden, where these synthetic organisms, subjected to mutation processes driven by radioactive decay, generate hybrid forms in a state of constant transformation. The images generated do not represent real-life organisms, but visualise the processes of contamination, mutation, adaptation and interdependence that characterise every type of ecosystem. The work not only stimulates critical reflection on the impact that radioactivity can have on terrestrial and marine environments, but also serves as a metaphor for a historical moment in which nuclear technology has made a surreal comeback, both for civilian uses and as a military threat. In *(di)atomic garden*, *Entangled Others* continues to explore the use of advanced computational systems to render complex and often invisible phenomena aesthetically relevant.

 

Entangled Others – (di)atomic garden