Artist 7

Natalie Jeremijenko uses various mediums, though mostly computer-related, it seems, to address the issues of climate change and the need to act in order to preserve the earth.  The image to the left is a computer desktop she developed called A-Trees, alluding to the conventional term for artificial life, which is A- Life.  Based on a reciprocating algorithm, the tree "grows" on the screen, depending on the input from a carbon-dioxide meter, which measures the level of CO2 in the immediate vicinity.  Her other projects include a program called Stump that prints out a cross-section of a tree's stump when the amount of paper used by the printer amounts to that area of tree in pulp, as well as a project called Tree Logic, which s a display of six trees hanging upside down outside of MASS MoCa. Apparently they collect sap from the trees.  I think the motivation behind her work is awesome, and I admire the creativity with which she was able to manifest those motivations, especially the desktop one.  I was drawn to her work because I agree strongly with the notion that action must be taken to preserve our planet.  She is furthering these questions and debates by simply drawing attention to it in a new way.  In terms of objectivity and subjectivity, I think hr artwork mostly pertains to the objective.  The desktop tree is about as possibly accurate as digital imaging can get, and the stump images are not enhanced or anything, merely just a basic printout of that image.  And those trees are just trees.  What makes these things so powerful is not the accuracy with which they are portrayed, but the new, sometimes strange manner in which these factual images are presented.  And this gives them a subjective quality, which allows Natalie to convey her message.