(2011)
Duration: 146-hour cycle
Color, animation
Format: Flash player/projector on Mac with monitor / projection
Dimensions variable
Add'l animators: Xue Hou, Andrea Lira, Laewook Kang
Code: Veronique Brossier
Occasional sound design by Lem Jay Ignacio

Leigh Bowery modeled by Lawrence Goldhuber
Red squirrel source footage generously bartered by Nicholas Berger
Developed during a residency at ISIS Arts, Newcastle, Northumberland

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Mesocosm (Northumberland UK) is an animated landscape portrait representing one year of real time on the moors of Northumberland. In a 146-hour cycle that unfurls in a choreographed sequence of chance, animated objects are placed on a stage, and code determines the frequency and order of their appearance. No cycle is identical to the last, as the appearance of characters and seasonal weather are determined by a simple probability equation. One hour of world time elapses in each minute of screen time: Seasons unfold, snows fall, days pass, moons rise, animals come and go, and the omnipresent man in the garden (based on a painting of Leigh Bowery by Lucien Freud), both corporeal and a magical source of food, offers his body to nourish the garden feeders. Real, mythical and man-made elements interact as they cross the stage of this British landscape, in an expanded view of what constitutes "nature."

Conceived during a 2009 research residency at ISIS Arts, Newcastle and based on the Northumbrian landscape, Mesocosm (Northumberland UK) will be seen by commuters (or loiterers) in public space, where one might become invested in the fate of the protagonists on a summer’s eve, and be surprised 72 hours later when it’s snowing and the animated field is full of refugees.

About the series
Mesocosm is a series of animated landscapes that develop and change over time in response to software-driven data inputs. The title Mesocosm is drawn from the field of environmental science and refers to experimental, simulated ecosystems that “allow for manipulation of the physical environment… [for] organismal, community, and ecological research1 .” Mesocosm’s animated landscapes portray specific places populated by animals, people, plants and weather whose behaviors and interactions are driven by data, probability, and if/then conditions, which determine what appears on screen. They are drawn by hand, frame-by-frame, yet their choreographies are dynamic – not looped or canned - dictated by constraints in real-time.

Each of the works in Mesocosm is long in duration and recombines perpetually as inputs determine order, density, and interrelationships. They are looped, and have no beginning or end. Because change happens slowly, but can be radical over time, the works are intended to be seen in public places where people gather or pass through frequently, or lived with like a painting – in living rooms and meeting spaces.

1. Kansas State University, Division of Biology<> , Rainfall Manipulations Plots description