Biopoiesis

My day job is teaching at an art college in Baltimore. I spend my creative time trying to make visual, historical, and theoretical connections between various scientific, engineering, and artistic disciplines. For example, the Cyanotype photographic process was invented by the son of astronomer William Herschel, who discovered Uranus, a story that includes far too many devastating and poetic coincidences centered on the chemistry of ferric ferrocyanide, known popularly as Prussian blue. Alan Turing, a mathematitian, described systems of differential equations that can be used to model biological patterning and now find applications in generative design. Similarly, John Von Neumann's cellular automata mimic other forms of biological patterning and have been applied to computer music and textile design. Biologist and illustrator Ernst Haeckel all but single-handedly inspired the biomorphic obsessions of the Art Nouveau movement.