TENDr Pod, 2016. Ceramic, Electronics, Plants.
MARNIA JOHNSTON combines a very old technology—ceramics—with new technology—electronics and robotics—in interactive works that tend to exist outside the white cube. Her TE+ND Rovers and TENDr Pods roam through the landscape, engaging bystanders to help them find light and water in exchange for education about native and non-native plants in the area. Marnia earned her BFA from San Jose State University (2007) and her MFA from the California College of the Arts (2007). She has been an Artist-in-Residence at John Michael Kohler Center for the Arts (2016), Kala Arts Institute (2015), Anderson Ranch (2014). Her numerous exhibitions include shows at Paragon Gallery (2017) in Portland, OR, Portand Museum of Contemporary Craft (2016), Richmond Center for the Arts (2015) in Richmond, CA and The American Museum of Ceramic Art (2015) in Pomona, CA. Most recently, Marnia participated in a Disaster and Climate Risk Artathon over the summer with Stanford doctoral students to create artworks that illustrate ecological resiliency. The results from that event will be shown at the Stanford Blume Earthquake Engineering Center from October 4 - December 1, 2017. Marnia lives and works in Concord, California.
OtherPeoplesPixels: Can you talk generally about how you use technology in your work as an artist?
Marnia Johnston:
I think that people forget what technology is. It’s the zipper on your
jacket, your shoelaces (or Velcro/elastic for those of us who like
slip-on shoes), a fishing net, very basic stuff that we no longer
consider technology because it’s so ubiquitous. When we talk about
technology today, we neglect our history, our long culture, our techne.
That’s why I like to use ceramic techniques, some of the oldest
surviving technologies we have, and mix them with rapid prototyping
techniques, motors, Raspberry Pi, and various sensors.
I’m not an engineer, but for the TE+ND rovers
I had to learn the iterative engineering design process. This meant
learning how to design robot parts using a variety of CAD programs,
learning CAM programs that transform my models into gcode and then learn
how to use 3D printers, CNC mills and water jet cutters. It’s been a
long process.
TE+ND Rover Ceramic Version, 2014. Ceramic, PLA, MDF, Electronics.
OPP: You mentioned the TE+ND rovers. “The rovers are
robotic fostering environments that care for their own garden of native
plants by interacting with participants and actively seeking out light
and water.” How do they tend their own gardens? Where do they rove?
MJ: TE+ND Rovers,
designed after space exploration vehicles, are intended to investigate a
range of environments, from cityscapes to less urban locales. Locations
for deployments have included Mt. Diablo, Joshua Tree, and Briones Park
(all in California) and the Kohler factory in Wisconsin.
I refer
to the audience as participants for this project. The participants are
encouraged to assist the rovers by watering their plants and herding
them (using their obstacle avoidance systems) toward the resources they
need—light and water— to keep their garden healthy. In the future,
rovers will use an optical sensor to locate water. In an urban setting,
rovers will find water in sprinkler systems, drip irrigation, rain, fog,
and from participants. In helping the rovers, participants learn about
cultivating native California habitat and stretch the limits of
human-robotic empathy and engagement.
Rover field test
OPP: Do you monitor them or just release them? How do other humans encounter the rovers?
MJ:
The rovers are currently monitored during deployments. I would like to
just let them roam but there are obvious complications to that. For
example, how to inform participants of the project efficiently when a
monitor is not present or how to keep people from just taking them home.
The rovers are usually deployed along popular hiking routes and
participants encounter them without previous knowledge of the project.
TE+ND monitors are on hand to answer questions and to initiate dialog
about what participants consider “native.”
Succulent Surrogate: Legs2010. cast porcelain, steel, plants.
OPP: What kinds of assumptions do participants make about the
plants surrounding them? What do you hope participants will understand
about “native” plants?
MJ: From my experiences, most
participants don’t really have an opinion until they remember that the
Eucalyptus trees they see are from Australia or that most of the grasses
underfoot are brown during the summer because the majority of them come
from Europe. The non-native grasses grow so quickly that they’ve
crowded out the native grasses, making it hard for native grasses to
compete. I’d hope that the experience leads participants to understand
that when they try to go for a hike to get back to ‘nature,’ what they
are experiencing is managed landscape; that their opinions and actions
help shape that landscape. I hope their experience with the project
enables participants to make conscious decisions about local habitat
that will benefit future human and nonhuman populations.
Swarm. Robotics.
OPP: SWARM is another robotic project that you’ve been involved with since 2007. What is your role in this collaboration?
MJ: SWARM was the brain child of Michael Prados and is funded by the Black Rock Foundation.
Many people have contributed to its design, construction and
presentation. In the beginning, we needed lots of volunteers with
specific skill sets to help with R&D. We needed every type of labor,
from building electronics to designing control interfaces. I helped to
weld the aluminum shells, helped design a performance laser perimeter,
presented the project to the public, among other things. In 2010 we were
lucky enough to be invited to India to perform and give a presentation
to students at the Indian Institute of Technology. I’ve also helped
perform at Coachella, the California Academy of Sciences in San
Francisco, at NASA Ames, and in New Orleans as part of the Multispecies Salon. I’ve been involved with the project for 10 years now.
OPP: Tell us about DIYbio and how it impacted your current practice.
MJ:
DIYbio was established to create a vibrant, productive and safe
community for people who wanted to work on their own biology projects.
Projects range from creating cheaper equipment that could be used more
efficiently and effectively in the field, to synthetic biologists
working in community labs to develop medicines (the Open Insulin
project), food (Real Vegan Cheese), and renewable energy (biofuels).
I’m
currently looking at cultivating oyster mushrooms and how they can be
used for soil remediation as part of an art project. The Bay Area, where
I live, had an important ship-building industry in World War II. There
were over 30 shipyards, and their supporting industries covered the bay
shore and estuaries. This industry, along with the use of lead paint,
contaminated the local soil with lead. I’ve been going to Counter Culture Labs, a wonderful community lab in Oakland, where Bay Area Applied Mycology
(BAAM) meets and has begun the soil remediation project. It’s a
valuable resource and the Bay Area is lucky to have such an amazing and
giving group of DIY biologists.
Orchid: Cast Clone, 2014. Translucent porcelain, steel.
OPP: Most of your work seems to make more sense outside the white cube. Can you talk about the role the site plays in your projects?
MJ:
Unfortunately, because the projects are so conceptually tied to the
site, they can be difficult to present in a gallery. For example, many
of the native plants on the TE+ND rover growing platform can’t
tolerate being inside where they dry out or don’t have the correct light
level to flourish. It also just doesn’t have the same impact. Rolling
along the California hills, you have a little rover laboring over vast,
sometimes difficult landscapes. The rover’s size is diminished in this
environment, compared to being situated in a white room.
It’s
also encouraging to interact with people who are not prepared for art,
as they usually are in a gallery. I get a wholly genuine response when
people interact with my projects outside. Besides, who doesn’t like
going for a hike?
Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in cross-stitch embroideries, remix video, collage and impermanent installations. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006 Stacia was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include shows at Siena Heights University (Michigan 2013), Heaven Gallery (Chicago 2014), the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago 2014), The Stolbun Collection (Chicago 2017) and Indianapolis Art Center (Indiana 2017). In March 2018, her solo installation Where Do We Go From Here? will open at Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois). In conjunction, the atrium will exhibit two-dimensional artwork by Chicago-based artists who were invited by Stacia to make new work also titled Where Do We Go From Here?