AEVUM

Maria Kuptsova and Sergey Kostyrko

Artwork Description:

AEVUM is a cyborganic installation in which a living organism becomes a computational centre. The project explores time as a process of growth, adaptation and exchange between organic and digital systems. Rather than treating computation as an accelerated operation performed solely by machines, AEVUM investigates bio-digital computation, where information processing emerges within living matter. At its centre is the slime mould Physarum polycephalum, cultivated in a bioreactor system with sensors regulating humidity and temperature. The organism continuously reorganises its network, optimising pathways, distributing resources and adapting to environmental change. Within the installation, this growth becomes the computational core of the space. The organism’s bioelectrical activity is measured in real time and translated into light and sound, shaping the surrounding environment. Micro-impulses form a pulsating audiovisual code, activating piezo transducers that resonate with glass elements created through experimental kiln-slumping. Light and sound emerge from the internal dynamics of the slime mould, transforming space into an extension of biological metabolism where environmental and computational processes become inseparable. Sound is transmitted through piezoelectric speakers coupled with handcrafted glass elements, while the responsive lighting system creates a fragile sensory field shaped by biological signals. Visitors enter a temporal system unfolding through growth and adaptation, where time expands, fluctuates and evolves with the organism itself. Computation is framed as cultivation rather than extraction. Its slow temporality interrupts the accelerated logic of technological production and calls for another form of attention based on maintenance, observation and care.

Project Collaborators:

Korbinian Enzinger - Computational Designer Gleb Andreev - Fabrication Engineer Marina Muzyka - Designer Glass artists: FRESH.GLASS (Dasha Bolkhovitina, Sergey Martynov, Anastasia Vishnyakova, Konstantin Gvozdev) Curator: Khristina Ots