Move 36

2002/04

Move 36 explores the permeable boundaries between the human and the nonhuman, the living and the nonliving. The title of Move 36 refers to the dramatic chess move made by computer Deep Blue against world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997 -- a chess match between the best player that ever lived and the best player that never lived. The work includes a plant, especially created for the work, that uses the universal computer code (ASCII) to produce a "Cartesian" gene, that is, a translation of Descartes' ontological statement "Cogito ergo sum" into a gene. As viewers walk into the space, they see a chessboard made of sand and earth, flanked by digital projections that evoke the players in absentia. The plant is rooted precisely in the square where the computer defeated the human, that is, where the move 36 was made.