PluginHUMAN: Emerge

Created by award winning art-technology duo Dr Betty Sargeant and Justin Dwyer of PluginHUMAN, this digital experience invites us to enter a world beyond the limits of the naked eye.

The title EMERGE not only relates to the emergence of the new MAP mima space, but to the way emerging technology can give us fresh perspectives on our natural environment.

PluginHUMAN have used specimens of soil, water, and plant matter from the natural environment to create biopolymers. These are compostable plastic-like materials, which the duo has examined and photographed under a microscope to reveal the beautiful and complex imagery hidden within nature. The artists have then used hundreds of these images to create their video installation for the Cube.

As an immersive experience, EMERGE allows audiences to experience our local environment, including our weather in a new way. Weather conditions and other data from the natural environment will dictate how the projection moves and illuminates the space inside the Cube.

Emerge PluginHUMAN - 0Y8A0811-Pano.jpg

The Discovery Ports

In EMERGE ARTEFACTS, the artists have created distinct and unique sculptural pieces using biopolymer artefacts and discarded metal rescued from the Awaba Waste Management Site in Lake Macquarie. They have given these rusted objects a new life by combining them with the biopolymers they created for EMERGE, now showing in the Cube. The biopolymers are a carbon neutral, biodegradable plastic-like organic material, made from water, plant matter and the metal they share their form with.

By combining these beautiful and colourful 'grown' objects with what was once 'rubbish' sourced from the tip, PluginHUMAN asks us to evaluate what is valuable, and what impact the things we leave behind can have on our environment.

“We’ve worked with MAP mima curator Pippa Budge and staff from the Awaba Waste Management Centre to collect small metal items that have been discarded for recycling. The team retrieved some curious and captivating objects from the waste at Awaba, which we have built into our small sculptures,” Dr Betty Sargeant.

Example of biopolymer sculpture by PluginHUMAN

Top and middle images: PluginHUMAN EMERGE 2021. Courtesy MAP mima.
Bottom image: PluginHUMANEMERGE ARTEFACTS 2021. Biopolymer and metal sculptures. Courtesy the artists.

Discover more: pluginhuman.com/arts/emerge