Event #3 - Vivarium Exhibit

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The human inside the dome being projected
on the screen on the wall
For my third DESMA event, I went to the opening of the "Vivarium" exhibit which was on May 10, 2018 at the CNSI gallery. which was on the which was put on by a research graduate student, Maru Garcia. The exhibit had two components to it, one was a half-dome object which contained soil and plants and the other part was covered with condensation which made the dome really foggy. The other piece of art was another half-dome object which had a person inside of it. At first I was very confused as to what was going on in the exhibit because it didn't really relate to anything we had learned in the class. It just seemed awkward and weird being in what seemed like a human biome. I felt that maybe Garcia wanted us to engage in what felt like what was actually being in a nature environment. 
Me with the Human in the dome

I then tried to use what we learned in the past weeks to try to connect everything. I felt that maybe it had something to do with BioArt or humans being used as piece of art which is what we read in the readings for week 6. With all the latest advancements in technology today, I feel Garcia was trying to connect the ideas of nature and humans to show how even in art it can be very relatable. There was a large projector of the screen on one of the walls which showed that there was a camera implanted somewhere inside the dome with the human inside of it because you could see him eating the soil and grass that was inside the exhibit. I thought it was very creative because this is something you hardly ever see in an exhibit, usually it's paintings and dry works of art, but in this case it was alive work of art.
Maru Garcia the person behind the exhibit

 After I got back from the exhibit, I dug a little deeper and did some more research on Maru Garcia and what her art focused on. I found out that she used some science and technology within her art. Garcia was trying to portray the message that humans could be destroying or ruining the environment we live in because when we go into habitats that are mainly occupied by animals we wreck havoc and destroy the normal lifestyle that should be present in those areas. I was also reminded of one of the first readings we did in this class in Week 1 about the article, "Third Culture: Being in Between", and how in this scenario we have the "cultures" of nature and art and the humans are considered to be the third culture, like the second set of eyes to understand how we could be harming the environment by disturbing the normal fauna. The idea of biodiversity is also another strong one because it shows how there is different kind of lives in each biome. I found this gallery to be very interesting and I would recommend it to a friend to check out. It was something very unique and I found that very fascinating. 


“UCLA Design Media Arts / Graduate Profiles.” UCLA Design Media Arts Full, dma.ucla.edu/grad/profiles/?ID=197.

 Vesna, Victoria. "Toward a third culture: being in between." Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-125.

 Garcia, Maru. ‘Vivarium’ 10 May 2018, California Neuroscience Institute 5 floor, Los Angeles, CA. Gallery 

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