We refer to the question: What sort of creature man’s next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be...It appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.
Samuel Butler, 'Darwin Among the Machines', 13 June 1863
We are in the dawn of a new era of alchemy - except this time the stakes are much higher.
Humans are at the verge of conquering what has been a privilege of the gods: creating new life-forms at will. Some of them are life-like creatures existing through silicon in software; others share the same four-dimensional space with us, hardware beings made from inorganic matter; and others yet are true organisms built from the same organic matter as we are, wetware synthesized for our needs.
They all are built to serve us. Or so we still think.
Kelédon is a performative installation presented in two rooms. The original Kelédones (Charmers in ancient Greek) were living statues with magical singing powers which were crafted in gold by Hephaistos as automated versions of the Sirenes for the second mythical temple of Apollon at Delphoi. Kelédon, the 'art-object', is exhibited in the main area. It is an automaton conceived and modeled algorithmically as a living creature, with its body enclosed in a transparent display casing.
The creature is designed as a composite cybernetic system and consists of three parts: aural, visual, and physical. These components are interconnected through a feedback network, with the audio projection controlling the video, the video projection controlling motors, and the motors controlling the audio in their turn. This network is a re-interpretation of the Repressilator experiment, which implemented genetically a mathematical model in E. coli bacteria. This experiment was a milestone for synthetic biology, an emerging field combining science and engineering to design and build radically new organisms.
Kelédon is being seeded - or fed if you prefer - by the visitors through indirect interaction. The interaction happens in a separate room that leads to the main area, without the knowledge of the visitors and before they get a chance to see the actual object exhibited. Visitors enter this room one-by-one and meet The Guard, a polite yet strict person of authority, whose character is a mix between an immigration officer, a policeman, and a doctor. Before being allowed to enter the main area, each visitor has to go through a particular procedure, as instructed by The Guard. This involves answering a number of questions about themselves that will be recorded (name, age, health condition, etc) and stepping in a designated area to be scanned with a camera. The Guard explains that this data will be stored in a safe place to preserve and archive the visitor' s voice and appearance on the day of the visit, as well as their personal data. Before going through with this procedure, visitors have to sign a form authorizing the storage and possible future use of this data by the artist. Once this procedure is successfully completed, visitors are allowed to enter the room. However, upon entering they realize that the audio and video recording is not merely kept for future archival purposes, but is instead used as the audiovisual seed material of Kelédon, the creature in the main area.