Miranda Moss & Daniel Brownell
Switzerland
May - June
Miranda Moss and Daniel Brownell have been invited to participate in the electronic art hackathon Forschungswoche at Anyma in Fribourg, as well as a micro-residency in the Swiss Mechatronic Art Society’s MechArtLab in Zurich in May-June 2019. Developing from Miranda’s 2017 Pro Helvetia / Artists-in-Labs residency, the bio/tech art duo will also visit The Swiss Federal Institute for Snow, Forest and Landscape and the Zurich Water Safety Laboratory.
The research residency came out of a need to further develop, alongside their Swiss collaborators, a project which tackles current and future issues surrounding water. This will culminate in a hackathon and an exhibition in both Lausanne and Cape Town in 2020/21, bringing together the minds and inventions of artists, scientists, writers, engineers, designers and biohackers from across the globe, tying together two urban regions of the world with a great discrepancy in water availability.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Miranda Moss is a recovering artist, outsider roboticist and DIY biologist based in Cape Town. Her practice has become increasingly interdisciplinary, and has seen her collaborate with scientists, engineers, designers and mechatronic artists in recent years. She has won and been nominated for a bunch of awards, exhibited extensively in South Africa, as well as at La Gaite Lyrique in Paris, Kikk festival in Belgium, Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam, Woelab in Togo and la Companie in Marseille. In 2017 she was the recipient of the Pro Helvetia / Artists-in-Labs residency in Zurich, where she was stationed in a phytopathology laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow, Forest and Landscape. 2018 saw her first participation in the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA).
Programmer by day and tinkerer/ bioartist by night, Daniel Brownell’s diverse after-hours practice encompasses light art, mycology, interactive electronics, hydroponics, food computing and interdisciplinary collaboration, to name a few. One of his goals is to simplify the latest advances from technical and academic works in these fields so that they can be implemented using common, off-the-shelf components. Finding cheap solutions, popularising insightful ideas, and raising awareness to increase adoption of new technology is key to improving public education and resiliency when faced with environmental crises. Daniel runs an innovative hydroponics and horticultural lighting company in Cape Town, working on and testing various experimental designs that are improving the state of the art. He contributes to open-source food computing projects, and is working on experiments with cameras, sensors, computer vision and machine learning to evolve ideal environmental conditions.
