Diaa Ahmed Mohamed Ahmedien
[ Egypt ]
The carbon farm is a data-based internet art project that uses a browser-based medium to develop a hyper-responsive canvas. This browser-based experiment is questioning the enforced consumptive behavior of today’s technology. Such behavior escalates the daily rates of the commodification of carbon dioxide and consequently degrades the global ecosystem.
Five plants have been sketched and coded in abstract forms. Each represents five countries (Germany, Egypt, China, Japan, and the USA). The five programmed plants autonomously interact with the surrounding environment and respond to the mouse click. By integrating API data derived from The European Space Agency’s Sentinel5P satellite (built to monitor air quality data like carbon hydroxide, sulfur monoxide, ozone, …), a crafted cloud visualizes the carbon emissions values detected on the atmosphere of the selected countries. According to the data flow referring to the fluctuations in the carbon emission values, the cloud continuously rebuilds its form. Therefore, the more changes the cloud witnesses, the more spontaneous degradation the five programmed floras suffer. Likewise, every pixel of the pixelated background assigns color by a single tone determined by the weather data (Temperature and humidity) integrated into the system using Openweather API data of the same five countries. Pixels’ colors tones are also directly affected by the carbon emissions data. Therefore, the more increase in the carbon emissions values, the more decrease in the saturation of every single pixel.
At the bottom, the more increase in carbon emissions values, the more water leak from the five programmed plants roots. Further, according to the integrated API data, the attached detecting counters show the percentage values released when the carbon emissions increase above the natural values.
Once the carbon emissions values accumulate, they dominate the entire system that gradually degrades in turn in its performance, colors, moves, and growth.
However, when the participant moves the mouse over the hyper canvas, the mouse icon changes to a cross icon. If the participant -in this case- clicks the mouse, the effect of the carbon emission partly reduces. Accordingly, the nearest pixels re-adjust their saturation, and the nearest flora regrows its form and stimulates its performance.
Within this context, the project invites participants/interactors to think of the effect of their daily use of carbon dioxide on the global ecosystem equilibrium. Such practices enrich the environmental role of digital art by enabling laypeople to interpret hard-to-read data regarding global warming threats.
Primary Project Website: https://www.diaaahmedien.com/thecarbonfarm
- Medium: Data-based Internet Art
- Year Produced: 2021
Overview of the top section of the browser (the five plants, the CO2 cloud, and the pixelated background). 
Overview of the bottom section of the browser (Water flows from the five plants’ roots connected with carbon detectors). 
When the plant of China is clicked, it rebuilds itself autonomously in the absence of CO2, and the surrounding pixels return themselves to the pure and clean color. 
When the plant of the USA is clicked, it rebuilds itself autonomously without CO2, and the surrounding pixels return themselves to the pure and clean color. 
Overview of the five plants under the influence of the CO2 emission they received from the cloud above. 
Overview of the top section of the browser (the five plants, cloud, and the pixelated background) before integrating CO2 emission data. 
Overview of the top section of the browser (the five plants, cloud, and the pixelated background) before integrating CO2 emission data. 
The programmed cloud before integrating the CO2 data into its system.
Diaa Ahmed Mohamed Ahmedien
Helwan University, New-Media Arts & Technology
Dr. Diaa Ahmedien is a lecturer in the sciences of New-Media Arts & Technology and an associate editor in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, a Nature journal group, part of Springer Nature. Diaa is an artist, educator, researcher, and creator to setup systems of interactive artworks. His accurate specialization lies in the sciences of New-Media arts, Digital Humanities, visual communications, and medical humanities, all of which emphasize the crucial role of the intersections among the arts, sciences, and technology in shaping knowledge-based societies.
Diaa graduated magna cum laude with a Ph.D. (D Phil) in sciences of visual arts and New-Media arts from the University of Bern and the University of Applied Sciences Bern, Switzerland, 2017. Diaa strongly believes in the inevitable role of mature artistic practices in making tomorrow’s sciences more open and democratic.
Through his research and cutting-edge experimental artistic projects, Diaa seeks Achieving Academic-Leading Advancement in Sciences of Visual Arts by fostering the interdisciplinary knowledge derived from the artistic practice-based research and reinforcing its dual functions of being a means of integrating the public into complicated scientific inquiries and as an approach to enrich the visual and visible interface of the contemporary sciences.
Artist’s Website: https://www.diaaahmedien.com/