Anna Martynenko

“Plants”, 2020

curators Artur Konstantinov, Natalia Federova, Anna Kozlova, Laura Rodriges
For Ars Electronica festival, Pangardenia project, Air gallery, Saint-Petersburg

The artist explores the idea of self-sufficient data, and the possibility of it growing, blossoming and fading away, using fragments of plants belonging to the gallery as her research material. During their life cycle, plants lose parts of their bodies: leaves, stems, branches, etc. The artist explores these fragments and gives them new life through examination.

The crucial part of the installation consists of a special algorithm that extracts information from withered plants. The resulting data, multiplying all by itself, grows, blossoms and fades away. The algorithm becomes a DNA sample of an artificial plant, a “digital flower” that has a fragment of dead nature as its seed. The life of the flower is represented in charts and drawings, growing in number with each action. Its blossoming, just like with smells in nature, adds other dimensions to the process with the inclusion of color and sound.

Viewers are invited to adopt the role of a gardener and admire the digital garden, surrounded by real gardening tools that are used for the cultivation of biological plants.