troy NEW YORK

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
critic: Jeremy CARVALHO

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Shen LI: O Seventy-Seven is a synthetic ecology for human, agricultural, and cyborg life developed and operated by fictional biotech / pharmaceuticals conglomerate “Bio-Codex.”

The complex supports market structures, produce farming, a capsule hotel, and parking in a single unibody topology. This exoskeleton uses single-sided “herringbone” surfacing at multiple scales to erase the distinction between over and under, inside and outside.

For example, rooted plants such as potatoes can be grown on the tops of surfaces while vined plants such as tomatoes can be grown on the undersides yet both can be tended by the same robotic laborers, which traverse fluidly from floor to ceiling. This configuration also supports the implant of a sub-irrigation system to weave water and nutrients through “stealth cockpits,” microclimatic greenhouse interiorities.

sP: What or who influenced this project?
SL: Pretentious / high-minded people with lofty ideals and neoliberal attitudes having existential meltdowns.

sP: What were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?
SL: Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, JG Ballard, Bruce Sterling, a strangely seductive subculture know as “furries.”

sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?
SL: Victor Timofeev, Vitaly Bulgarov, Brett Helquist, Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are), Edward Gorey, Moebius (the late French cartoon artist).

Additional credits and links:
[shen-li.net]