ABSTRACT Soils surrounding ancient settlements can hold evidence of the activities of past societies. To seek an understanding of how past societies have reacted and contributed to environmental change requires many data sources. The real-time audiovisual installation Ground-breaking problematizes the presentation of such data, gained in this case through the image-analysis of soil materials. These data are used to connote environmental events and consequent human responses. By combining these data with audiovisual synthesis and environmental recordings, the authors present a basis for developing conceptualizations of new locales undergoing environmental change; the visual and sonic narratives that are developed allow the art-science interface to be explored.

ABSTRACT The author's 2005 Leonardo publication documented a biology-based procedure for generating experimental digital architecture. The text evolved out of Louis Sullivan's morphological lexicon and design process as articulated in A System of Architectural Ornament . The present article is rooted in that paper but here infused with theoretical ideas from Leibniz, Deleuze, Rajchman and Dawkins emphasizing biodesign and bioarchitecture's role as part of nature. In addition, new projects and digitally grown tree/truss experiments illustrate generative, digital-botanic designs integrating biological simulation and/or 3D parametric components inspired by nature.

ABSTRACT The author, drawing on her experience as a New Zealand artist who has collaborated with meteorologists, suggests that artists may enter climate change discourse by translating (or mis-translating) scientific method into sensory affect. She examines three recent art projects from Australasia that draw on natural phenomena: her own Anemocinegraph (2006–2007), Nola Farman's working prototype The Ice Tower (1998) and Out-of-Sync's ongoing on-line project, Talking about the Weather . The author cites Herbert Marcuse's 1972 essay “Nature and Revolution,” which argues that sensation is the process that binds us materially and socially to the world.