Grace Grothaus

My practice-based artistic research encompasses physical computing, environmental sensing, algorithmically generated imagery, and speculative futurity. My research centers around the present global climate crisis and futurity. I'm deeply concerned with fostering empathetic relationships between human beings and our more-than-human environs in order to address our current critical climatological issues, particularly the pressing ecological crisis of biodiversity loss. How can we reshape our relationships with each other and collectively awaken to a role of intra and inter-species respect, mutualism, and stewardship?

Looking into the history of the environmental movement, I find that environmental efforts and computational tools are deeply intertwined. Awareness of global climate change was in fact accomplished through computational modeling.  Furthermore, computational tools such as environmental sensors make visible elements that would otherwise remain invisible. Recently a shift in my practice has taken place - towards the production of artworks that are themselves computational tools - and from which additional artworks can be generated. 

Sun Eaters

Sun Eaters sense the invisible bioelectric waves present in all living beings through ECG and translate it into visible light waves for us to see. They are installed in trees along walking paths inviting passers-by towards a heightened awareness of the oft-overlooked vegetation all around us. Plant blindness, a form of cognitive bias, is a common tendency to overlook plants and to treat them solely as a beautiful backdrop in front of which human action takes place. Yet plants, trees in particular, sequester, or remove carbon from our atmosphere. As atmospheric carbon is the main driver of our present climate change crisis, trees are vital to the health of our future and worthy of our increased attention. Therefore, for much the same reasons that some stop signs and warning notices are outfitted with blinking LEDs, I’ve illuminated these trees with the same: to to arrest your attention within our oversaturated world. 

Open Seed

Open Seed is a biodiversity archival tool; an invitation to record vulnerable and vanishing biodiversity across the continents and share our climate change stories with one another. Explore the trilingual archived collection here and then archive your own contribution using the uploader and instructional videos. What is the significance of plant biodiversity local to you? In what ways has the changing landscape affected you? Tell your climate stories with the world. Every seed has a story, record yours here: www.openseed.space

These Delicate Lines (that divide us)

These Delicate Lines (that divide us) presents a warning image of a potential future for our world: one in which all the polar ice has melted. It work asks us to reconsider our worldview and priorities as we look closer to our planet instead of what is beyond. Our current world maps are all from an extra-planetary view, gazing downward from outer space.What happens if we instead were to reimagine the view upward from the center of the earth? We'd see a view such as you have here, an earth-centric world map. If this appears "backward" to you, I ask you to consider - what is up, down, left and right on our finite blue marble floating through the solar system? If we reorient our gaze back inward, might we refocus our attention on life right here? Together we direct our future, but to do so we first must imagine a framework, or worldview, that shapes our thoughts and decisions. Therefore I propose a new world map and a new flag. One that not only warns and reframes our worldview upward and outward from the center of the soil, the origins of our life, but one which also presents the world as it truly is: without borders. This past year, 2020, in which worldwide we face the same challenge no matter who or where we are, why don't we embrace a new mental map of the world and fly a new flag to remind ourselves of it? 2020 can be the beginning of our seeing clearly, of seeing 20/20. This flag is a deconstruction of nationalism and instead proposes a new perspective on the approach needed as a global society to combat climate change.

Acknowledgements 

It’s hard to find words to express the depth of my gratitude. The process of unfolding over these last three years contains so many unforgettable moments which will remain with me, continue to shape me, for a lifetime. 

To my partner Felipe, from our earliest chance discussions in class together to today, the exchanges we share are a daily inspiration. To my family, thank you for believing in my artistic voice. Without you I would not be here. To my friends and to our cohort, you are the communities that give meaning to the journey, thank you for everything along the way. 

To the faculty who walked this part of the path with my by joining my committee, thank you not only for your magnanimity with time and ongoing support but also for the thoughtful questions you asked: they have helped me to choose my way. Thank you also to a number of other faculty both in the Visual Arts department and across the UC San Diego campus for continually stoking my intellectual curiosity; your collegial generosity in discourse is what makes interdisciplinary work possible. To the students who I’ve been fortunate to teach with, thank you for your energy and enthusiasm for learning. It is for your generation and those after that I research and advocate for climate change solutions. 

Lastly, thank you immensely to the more than human ecosystems among which I’ve walked and listened with intention, as the knowledge gained therein reaches beyond the written.