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For Ken Rinaldo, art that utilizes and explores the broader impacts of technology can offer insights about the living world surrounding us.

On Nov. 17, the Benton Museum of Art invited Rinaldo to speak on his work, which integrates technology and art to illuminate the connectedness of natural living systems.

Rinaldo is an internationally recognized artist who creates interactive installations combining living organisms with algorithms and robotics. His work fuses technological systems with living systems to realize visions of sustained interaction between the digital and natural realms.

At the Benton, Rinaldo presented a talk titled, “From Visible Lenses to Algorithmic Lenses: Biotechnology Meets Contemporary Art.” He discussed a series of his works over the last several years and described his creative process. The talk concluded with a workshop where participants created microbial self-portraits.

During the talk, Rinaldo described his unconventional pathway to becoming an artist.

“I studied ballet in New York for many years,” Rinaldo said. “My mom convinced me to come to California to get an education … I went to work in galleries … and was making my own [artwork] at home.”

Eventually, he chose to focus on interactive art related to natural systems. One of his early works, “The Flock,” was a group of musical interactive sound sculptures that exhibit similar behavior to animals that live in flocks. His later work interrogated the role of technologies such as AI in analyzing animal behavior.

“It has to do with system contribution, emergence and evolution … [Sensors] allow the sculpture to display both attraction and repulsive behaviors. The overall speed of reaction is rapid as in daily life.”

Another of his works, “Augmented Fish Reality,” explored interspecies and trans-species communication. Betta fish swam in robotic fish bowls, activating robots when reacting to the human viewer’s gaze. Rinaldo noted the surprising intelligence of betta fish.

“Human participants get a sense … of being immersed in the fish … They’re bred for fighting, but I didn’t want them to fight.”

Rinaldo’s use of four infrared sensors ensured that the fish controlled the robots.

“It has to do with system contribution, emergence and evolution … [Sensors] allow the sculpture to display both attraction and repulsive behaviors,” Rinaldo said. “The overall speed of reaction is rapid as in daily life.”

Many attendees were students from the “Viral Cultures” course at Harvey Mudd College, taught by the event organizer Claire Nettleton. Attendee James Nicholson HM ’24, a student in this course, found this work particularly fascinating.

“I think that the case where the fish were controlling [the robots] was really cool,” Nicholson said. “It was surprising that someone would think of this but also intuitive.”

Next, he discussed his piece “Opera for Dying Insects,” which touched on the impact of the current insect extinction. He used an AI system to turn the sounds of pill bugs into tragic opera songs.

Attendee Caetando Perez-Merchant HM ’24 reflected on the issue Rinaldo illuminated.

“I was surprised by how much insects are slowly being destroyed and all the different effects that can [have] … I feel a bit more aware and concerned about the situation,” Perez-Merchant said.

In his work “Borderless Bacteria, Colonialist Cash,” Rinaldo cast bacteria growth as analogous to colonization.

“I realized that bacteria are the original colonizers … and developing monetary systems are an expression of how nations feel about themselves,” Rinaldo said. “I was interested in an article that talked about the 3000 types of bacteria found on dollar bills … so I decided to look at [the currency] of conflict nations and grow bacteria in them or just put them in liquid agar.”

Finally, he displayed AI-authored drawings trained on images of biological networks. One of these vibrant images humanized the cell and provided a three-dimensional perspective on the labor involved in large-scale cellular functioning.

“I thought stable biological networks can be causal information and machine networks,” Rinaldo said. “Once the drawings were done … it reminded me of the images in the training set … and the words themselves allowed them to evolve the verbs, and this is [the result] they gave me.”

Following the talk, Rinaldo held a workshop where participants created microbial self-portraits by bringing three personal objects and pressing them into a petri dish to create a record. The participants used everything from currency to Taylor Swift memorabilia for this project.

Rinaldo emphasized the intertwined nature of integrating scientific and artistic perspectives in our daily lives.

“When you look at Nobel Laureates, most of them have some experience in the arts,” Rinaldo said. “The most dangerous scientists are the ones that look at close slivers without an open mind, but I think scientists are extremely creative beings.”