Noxiterra 2008 + ongoing

About the project
Noxiterra is an ongoing experiment in world construction and responsive narrative based on a miniature biome. The challenge I have undertaken with this project is twofold: to explore the idea of a model world as a generative system, and to work within the constraints of a living system.

Noxiterra v.1 was deployed as a beta version in August 2008 in conjunction with the international 080808 UpStage Festival of online performance. Products of that deployment included improvisations for the festival, a series of digital prints, and the initial stages of an experimental graphic novel.

Noxiterra v.2, currently under construction, represents a different approach arising from my experiences with the beta version.

080808 UpStage Festival
In the beta version Noxiterra was a diorama-like 4'x8' box connected to the Internet via a live webcam. At left is a screen capture of my webcam feed into the UpStage virtual stage during a rehearsal for the festival. This live webcam feed of Noxiterra served as an imaginary environment for the virtual performers, who improvised poetic monologues in response to the changing camera image. I served as the 'director of photography', moving the webcam around my biome to generate a specific sequence of images for each 20-minute performance.

The prints
Following the UpStage performances, I made a limited edition of digital prints using a selection of images from the webcam captures. Each 13x19" print shows a composite of nine images from one of the three performances (the one at left is from the first performance). Within each print, the images are arranged in chronological order: the sequence begins at upper left and ends at lower right.

Below are two more prints, composites of the second and third UpStage Festival performances.

Graphic novel tests
Some of the webcam stills captured during the UpStage performances were used to develop the first pages of the Noxiterra graphic novel. My intention is to continue development of this graphic novel as a quasi-fictionalized documentation of phase 2 of the project.

Noxiterra v.2
A key aspect of Noxiterra that is being implemented in v.2 is an automated system of light and water inputs allowing these variables to be adjusted according to data on long-term global warming trends. From early bell jars to modern terraria, there is a long tradition of using model biomes to replicate the 'natural' world in miniature. Noxiterrra departs from these experiments in idealized mimesis by shifting the focus to modeling nonideal conditions.

Noxiterrra v.2 is being set up this way so that I can address the psychology of escape narratives (to the new world, to outer space) that have had such a hold on the western mind. In the face of a looming eco-catastrophe, how might we come to terms with our world in the absence of such fantasies?

In the round
At left is the skeleton of Noxiterra v.2, which is being built as a freeform 'green pod' whose entire surface will be covered with biota. I am developing a special-purpose adobe clay designed to crumble at a predictable rate for part of the matrix. Wiring for miniature grow lights and webcams, plus a hydraulic system for water delivery, will run up the central post and emerge from the inside. All systems are being connected by way of Arduino micro-controllers to a custom MAX/MSP software interface through which the light and water cycles will be programmed. My fabrication assistant on this project is artist Brett Doar.

Completion of Noxiterra v.2 is projected for winter/spring 2010, after which the biome will run for at least a year. The project will be publicly trackable through a net-based interface to the webcams.