Fig. 1 Performance "Across Borders", Biocenter, Vienna,  2024

 

 

 

Art and Science Collaboration

Collaborations between artists and scientists combine intuition and analysis to explore the hidden structures of life. Scientific protocols of experimentation, observation, and theory contribute rigor, precision, and conceptual clarity, while artistic intuition and free imagination challenge assumptions and open unexpected viewpoints of perception. Within science art collaborations, these differing modes of thinking do not compete, but expand one another, extending exploration into areas that exceed the limitations of science alone.

 

 

Fig. 2 Cell - Cocreation Nr.4, completed 2026, LBI Residency

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 3 Performance, West, Vienna, 2025

 

 

 

 

Artist Residence at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut-MedNet

West (LBI) (alte WU), Althanstrasse, 1090 Vienna, Austria, November 2024 - Mai 2025.

In November 2024, after the opening of the institute´s new facilities in West, 1090 Vienna, I was offered the opportunity of working along side AI engineers residence at the LBI-NetMed in Vienna Austria, headed by Professor Dr. Jörg Menche. Within the scope of this project I was able to engage with a group of highly creative scientists, engineers, especially with the scientist, Christiane Hütter, and the institutes animation engineers.

 

 

Fig. 4, Cell - Cocreation  Nr4  2025, LBI Residency

 

 

Fig. 5, Preliminary, Cell - Cocreation Nr. 3

 

 

In the LBI-NetMed´s own words: "The overarching ambition of the LBI-NetMed is to leverage network theory, machine learning and artificial intelligence to formulate a holistic view of the intricate cross-scale nature of human biology and to translate the gained insights to concrete medical impact ranging from diagnosis to treatment. …...The human body contains myriads of components that range from biomolecules to cells, tissues and organs. ...Understanding the fundamental architecture of cross-scale networks from the molecular to the whole-body level are central to improve how diseases are diagnosed, treated, and managed." (see https://netmed.lbg.ac.at/, May, 2025).

As the concept of „cells, tissues and organs“ had already been a motif that I had been repeatedly returning to, it offered a very interesting opportunity to apply and extend this concept into the AI-world. The latter, however, became the primary element of the collaboration in the form of a „human creator and machine in symbiosis“.

 

This specific work explores two themes:

1. the emergent dialogue between human creative intuition and AI, questioning the boundaries of authorship and representation in a technologically mediated world;

2. Order and chaos as the underlying patterns of life – patterns from which biological forms and evolution are generated.

 

 

The subject

The subject of the co-creation, that of a biological cell, a fundamental unit of life, will be reimagined as an electric circuit within an organic sphere, the cell membrane. The circuit stands for the strict design form and function of the cell, whereas the cell membrane it the fluid, continuously changing and thus adaptable in form and function. In the present context the strict design stands for the generative DNA-programme, as manifested the constitutive form-function of the biological cell. This is complemented by the membrane, which represents the creative chaos, the basis for adaption and continued evolution.

 

The Performance Process

As the painting evolved, so too did the relationship between the co-creators. They complemented each other, challenged each other, and ultimately, transcended the boundaries of their individual identities. This performance and installation challenged the nature of creativity, the role of technology in the artistic process, and the potential for human-machine collaboration. It invited viewers to contemplate the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, the organic and the mechanical, the human and the machine.

 

Exhibitions

The residency led to three exhibitions and three performances, in which I co-created a biological cell with an AI-based robot plotter in the context of an art performance, both in Vienna, Austria (see Exhibitions). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musings from the collaboration

 

Both order and chaos are essential principles in the growth of the individual cell as of the evolution of the species. In this context, the printer contributes predictably ordered architecture, as compared to the human artist, who contributes unpredictable pattern variation, i.e. chaos.

This concept was put into practice in a project as artist in residence at the LBI-NeMed. 

 

 

Role of humans in an AI-driven world

 

With the advent of Artificial Intelligence this topic has received a special relevance to many professional service activities, including the fine arts. AI-driven tools, be it purely digital or implemented through robots, are enabling the replacement of many functions hitherto performed by humans. This begs the question as to where will this leave human creativity in the future?

Up until now we have claimed authorship and ownership of the programmes that determine robot functions, but what will happen when AI tools attain a level of sophistication that enables them to rewrite and author their own programmes. What does that mean for humans? How will we cooperate with this new entity?

The Future of AI-Evolution

In order for the above mentioned to see reality, information technology must become more efficient, both in terms of energy consumption and data processing. In comparison, biological systems are far more efficient, on both levels. IT will need to take on biological concepts in order to reach the future described above. The concept of cooperation, too, is a biological concept, which has escaped humans somewhere in their evolutionary development. We,  too, will need to adopt a new level of biological understanding of survival through cooperation.  All in all, THE FUTURE OF AI LIES IN BIOLOGY.