Bio Sculpture (Scene of a Future Portable Lab)

Bio Sculpture — Scene of a Future Portable Lab develops Bio Sculpture—a work that creates conditions in which ecosystems can begin to form—as a portable research apparatus from a possible future.

When the work was created in 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic had made masks part of everyday life. Beginning with this experience, it imagines a future in which airborne microplastic pollution has advanced to the point that life without a mask is no longer possible. A tent, a 3D-printed soil structure, and environmental sensors compose a scene from a portable laboratory researching technologies for air purification.

The work was created for Jack into the Noösphere, an exhibition in the inaugural Chiba City Festival of Arts, and was presented at night in a Japanese garden. During the exhibition, changes in the surrounding environment were measured in real time. After the art festival closed, the work was relocated to an unused plot of land in Chiba City for long-term preservation and observation. Forest soil was transplanted into the structure, and its developing relationship with the surrounding environment was observed through microbial analysis and other forms of long-term study.

Here, the laboratory is not a device for isolating humans from the external environment. It is a place for investigating how the environment shared by humans and other forms of life might itself be restored. Could technology do more than protect us from pollution? Could it help rebuild environments in which multiple species can live together? The work presents one scene from such a future.