Absorption, technical 3D-render study. Image: Mário Dominguez
When nutrients bump into the outside of a cell wall, a small bubble called a vesicle forms to shuttle the precious cargo from the extracellular medium into the interior of the cell.
When Portuguese digital artist Rudolfo Quintas bumped into Harvard Medical School cell biologist Tomas Kirchhausen, they formed a collaboration that gave rise to a surprising new interactive audiovisual sculpture that can sense human presence and interact with it, mimicking the interactions that occur in cells when vesicles form.
“After only a few minutes of conversation with Rudolfo, an irresistible and exciting collaboration started,” Kirchhausen said. “We spent many hours—talking, discussing, brainstorming and laughing—on how to transform our science into some form of artistic manifestation that could be interesting and stimulating to all.”
The resulting sculpture, known as Absorption, was unveiled recently in Lisbon, Portugal, as part of an exhibition called PRESENSE, on display at the Adamastor Studios gallery for most of March. The installation is an artistic metaphor for the molecular mechanism of endocytosis, the process that cells use to bring things from outside their walls into their interior.
The piece was conceived at HMS, when Kirchhausen, professor of cell biology and pediatrics at HMS and the Immune Disease Institute at Boston Children’s Hospital, hosted Quintas on an artistic research residency last year.
Quintas said the visit to Kirchhausen’s laboratory gave him the opportunity to “absorb the scientific experience and take it to its essence in order to create a potentially pedagogical artistic experience of interaction between the body and the sculpture.”
The project began with a challenge Kirchhausen made to the Portuguese artist: Find a way to create an interactive multimedia art installation based on the biological processes at play in the formation of these bubbles.
The dynamic sculpture features an interactive narrative that is recreated spontaneously through the participation and dynamic intervention of each visitor, the collaborators said.
As the visitor interacts with the sculpture, the participant's presence can be absorbed by the sculpture in the same way that nutrients are internalized by cells.
Kirchhausen, who is also the director of the HMS-Portugal Program in Translational Research and Information, emphasizes the importance of encouraging the creative process with his students and scientific collaborators. In his lab, the communal lounge where technicians and researchers socialize is labeled with a sign that says “Dream Space,” and over the years he has worked with animation, music and dance to explore different aesthetic and cognitive dimensions of the biological processes he studies.
Clathrin Mediated Endocytosis. Video: Janet Iwasa and Tom Kirchhausen
PRESENSE is a production of Artech-International Association, curated by Verónica Metello. It is co-financed by DGartes and co-produced by Tom Kirchhausen. It was supported by the Universidade Aberta , the Instituto Universitário da Maia and the Centro de Investigação em Arte e Comunicação (Center for Investigating Art and Communication) of the Universidade do Algarve. Designer Mário Dominguez cpntributed graphics programming and three-dimensional renders for Absorption.
Opening of PRESENSE, an interactive digital art exhibition by Rudolfo Quintas. Video: Adamastor Studios
