The Plant Machine Design Group’s machine learning model heals a leaf damaged by Vermont’s recent Spongy Moth outbreak.
What: Art Exhibition: The Generative Tree: New Work by Jenn Karson
Please note the following dates:
Exhibition Opening Reception: Friday, Jan 10, 2025, 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: January 10 – March 15, 2025
Where: The Phoenix, 5 Stowe Street
Waterbury Village Historic District, VT 05676
Contact: Joseph Pensak (802.355.5440, Joseph@thephoenixvt.com)
thephoenixvt.com | jennkarson.studio | Plant Machine Design Group
Press images and image descriptions at: https://go.uvm.edu/gentree
January 2024, Waterbury, VT – Over 600 vibrant prints and an interactive AI installation explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and ecological restoration in The Generative Tree, a groundbreaking exhibition debuting at The Phoenix Gallery. Created by artist Jenn Karson and her Plant Machine Design Group at the University of Vermont, the exhibition is a dynamic interplay of arts and science methodologies while offering a local Vermont perspective on a global era shaped by rapid technological advancements and worsening climate crises. By transforming the gallery into an “art lab,” the exhibition empowers visitors to discover how interdisciplinary thinking enriches our understanding of contemporary life and sparks vital conversations about our shared future.
“What compels me about Jenn’s work is its combination of play and irony with a seriousness about drawing attention to technology’s potential to solve environmental problems,” said Joseph Pensak, founding director and lead curator for The Phoenix. “You’ll be able to walk into this show and enjoy it on a purely visual level even if you don’t have time to get into the weeds of her philosophical approach and its implications (which you should).”
The exhibition transforms The Phoenix into a dynamic exploration of technology and nature. Through an immersive installation of over 600 digital prints and an interactive touchscreen display, visitors engage with custom AI developed by Karson’s team, and human and machine attempts to heal damaged leaves from Vermont forests. Additional elements include captivating photographs, a sound installation, high-precision machine engravings, and drawings that bridge the visual languages of art, science, and technology.
The opening reception will feature St. Silva and drinks and will run 6-8pm on Friday, January 10th. Workshops for kids and families are planned, dates TBD.
At the heart of the exhibition lies a remarkable dataset: over 10,000 Vermont leaves scarred by the invasive Lymantria dispar caterpillar during the outbreaks of 2021 and 2022. This collection gains special significance through its timing, coinciding with the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT and the dawn of widespread generative AI technology.
The exhibition begins with a historical parallel: the story of artist-scientist Étienne Trouvelot‘s failed 19th-century silk moth breeding experiment during the Civil War, which inadvertently introduced one of North America’s most destructive invasive insects. “Today, we live in the wake of Trouvelot’s failed experiment while we we’re living in the 21st-century generative AI experiment,” said Karson. Her team uses original datasets of damaged and healthy Vermont leaves to train AI models in “healing and repair,” symbolically engaging artificial intelligence in ecological restoration.
“I’m excited to share this thought experiment for future technologies that celebrate all forms of life. Imagine AI systems that understand they’re part of a larger web of life – connected to humans, animals, and plants in meaningful ways,” Karson added. The exhibition concludes with the debut of Phytomechatronics, a speculative framework imagining technological advancements that nourish rather than extract from biological systems.
Select works, including digital prints and ink-on-paper drawings, will be available for acquisition through the gallery. The Phoenix will also debut an extended series of 12″ x 14″ Phytomechatronic drawings for collectors. Ten percent of proceeds will fund art supplies for Waterbury public schools.
The Generative Tree installation was designed in cooperation with Jon Bondy from Vermont Rapid Prototyping.
About the Artist:
Artist Jenn Karson, Senior Lecturer at the University of Vermont, uses scientific processes and technologies as creative catalysts. Her art practice weaves tactile techniques with generative algorithms, transmuting digital data into architectural forms and visual languages. These artifacts challenge conventional divides between the artificial and the natural, creating a space where technology and nature converge. Her work has been featured in international exhibitions including “Aberrant Creativity,” co-presented by The Arts Council of Brazos Valley and Texas A&M University, and she was recently invited to the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Through her Plant Machine Design Group, she advocates for Phytomechatronics: a speculative framework for technology attentive to the vital futures of plant, animal, and human soft bodies.
About the Venue:
The Phoenix Gallery & Music Hall is located in the heart of historic Waterbury Village, Vermont. The Phoenix hosts four curated art exhibitions per year and numerous weekly music offerings. Connected to the Phoenix, upstairs Waterbury Studios is home to four creative small business studios and a small gallery called the Hesterly Black, which hosts four curated solo art shows per year.
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The Generative Tree exhibition is supported in part by the University of Vermont, The Vermont Advanced Computing Center, and the National Science Foundation. It is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under award No. 2218063. Computations were performed on the Vermont Advanced Computing Core supported in part by National Science Foundation (NSF) award No. OAC-1827314.
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