{Medusa,Medusa,...}
An Interactive Projection Work by: David Lobser
This video is a screen capture of a sound sensitive, real-time animation made in threejs. {Medusa,Medusa,...} is about the Turritopsis nutricula, or the immortal jellyfish. According to wikipedia: " It is the only known case of an animal capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage... this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal". The piece is about the human desire for immortality and the possibility that we may turn ourselves into human/jellyfish chimera to achieve these ends. The jellyfish in the video is made of human bones and when the viewer destroys it by being too loud it will regenerate itself.
"The Chimera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of three animals - a lion, a snake and a goat. Usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and a tail that ended in a snake's head,[1] the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe concepts perceived as wildly imaginative or implausible." -Wikipedia
"The term medusa was coined by Linnaeus in 1752, alluding to the tentacled head of Medusa in Greek mythology." - Wikipedia
"Haeckel advanced a version of the earlier "recapitulation theory" - Wikipedia
"The theory of recapitulation ... is a biological hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages in the evolution of their remote ancestors" - Wikipedia
"Jellyfish have roamed the seas for at least 500 million years,[1] and possibly 700 million years or more, making them the oldest multi-organ animal.[2]" - Wikipedia
{Medusa,Medusa,...} may be considered in part a project to help visualize the nascest stage of a potential post human life form. In this speculative future humans have bred with jellyfish to increase their life expectancy. Due to a series of unfortunate events humans are wiped out, leaving behind only our progeny: jellyfish made of bone.
"The mystery of life is not concealed in the higher animals," Kubota told me. "It is concealed in the root. And at the root of the Tree of Life is the jellyfish."
"There's a shocking amount of genetic similarity between jellyfish and human beings," said Kevin J. Peterson, a molecular paleobiologist who contributed to that study, when I visited him at his Dartmouth office. From a genetic perspective, apart from the fact that we have two genome duplications, "we look like a damn jellyfish."
{Medusa,Medusa,...} may also be considered a meditation on the wild diversity that springs from a simple core packet of information contained in our dna. The Medusa in the video are all similar, but also completely different, and like snowflakes you will never see the same Medusa twice, destroying one means destroying it forever.
"If everyone learns to love living organisms, there will be no crime. No murder. No suicide. Spiritual change is needed. And the most simple way to achieve this is through song."-Shin Kubota
"The Chimera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of three animals - a lion, a snake and a goat. Usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and a tail that ended in a snake's head,[1] the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe concepts perceived as wildly imaginative or implausible." -Wikipedia
"The theory of recapitulation ... is a biological hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages in the evolution of their remote ancestors" - Wikipedia
"Jellyfish have roamed the seas for at least 500 million years,[1] and possibly 700 million years or more, making them the oldest multi-organ animal.[2]" - Wikipedia
{Medusa,Medusa,...} may be considered in part a project to help visualize the nascest stage of a potential post human life form. In this speculative future humans have bred with jellyfish to increase their life expectancy. Due to a series of unfortunate events humans are wiped out, leaving behind only our progeny: jellyfish made of bone.
"The mystery of life is not concealed in the higher animals," Kubota told me. "It is concealed in the root. And at the root of the Tree of Life is the jellyfish."
"There's a shocking amount of genetic similarity between jellyfish and human beings," said Kevin J. Peterson, a molecular paleobiologist who contributed to that study, when I visited him at his Dartmouth office. From a genetic perspective, apart from the fact that we have two genome duplications, "we look like a damn jellyfish."
{Medusa,Medusa,...} may also be considered a meditation on the wild diversity that springs from a simple core packet of information contained in our dna. The Medusa in the video are all similar, but also completely different, and like snowflakes you will never see the same Medusa twice, destroying one means destroying it forever.
"If everyone learns to love living organisms, there will be no crime. No murder. No suicide. Spiritual change is needed. And the most simple way to achieve this is through song."-Shin Kubota
Anthomedusa - Haeckel
Cubomedusae - Haeckel - 'box jellyfish'
Discomedusae - Haeckel
Discomedusae - Haeckel
The following images are screen captures from {Medusa,Medusa,...}
