“{Centriole} #8” by Agoria brings art and science together

By Chris Ostoich

Science and Art, the two primary means of understanding the salient truths of human existence, often dance in near proximity. Leonardo da Vinci famously designed beautiful machines of war and meticulous drawings based on human dissection. Marie Curie’s discovery of radium led to glow-in-the-dark clock faces and art of every variety. Now, too, does French artist Agoria, with biologist Alice Meunier, mix art with science in “Centriole.”

“Centriole” is a demonstration of this marriage of science and art in practice. The new works on SuperRare, described as biological generative art, capture the mysterious, celestial process of the formation of organelles in living cells in the brain. The series, delivered as short films, have managed to capture a delicate dance that organelles take to allow discreet but indispensable hair cells called celia to grow. In the main role is the centriole.  

Meunier, an IBENS CNRS researcher, has spent years studying the inner workings of the brain and has been able to capture these groundbreaking films at a resolution of 1/10000 of a millimeter. That’s 1000 times smaller than the thickness of a sheet of paper. The resulting capture is something so stunning that it challenges the distinction between science and art. And it begs the question: does it matter?

The artist, Agoria, believes that the two are one in the same, and exist as something inside all of us and all things. A pioneer of the French electronic music movement, the producer, DJ and artist’s creative practice exists at the intersection of art, science and technology. He is bringing this to life by exploring the possibilities of AI, generative algorithms and living systems.

“Centriole” is transformational in many ways.  It is an achievement in research, and an accomplishment in living art.  It is also perhaps a glimpse at what academic research might look like or how it could be impacted by the advancements in Web3.  If science is art, and the work can be tokenized and made available to collectors, how might this shift the traditions by which research is funded and capitalized?  What other bodies of research have art hidden inside? In science, as in art, two important parameters are needed to be free of any influence: time and disinterested money.