As Above, So Below. 2024

2025

Semantica, Juan Cortés​​

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Commissioned by Somerset House for SOIL: The World At Our Feet, 2025

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As Above, So Below is an interactive installation that uses computational biology and agent-based modelling to simulate the biochemical, metabolic and planetary processes within soil, and highlights how it is deeply impacted by the speculative logic of financial markets and industrial agriculture.

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The floor projections simulate a living soil ecosystem, showing interactions between organisms, nutrients and seeds. Live agroindustrial market data displays crop demand, whilst touch-sensitive ceramic seeds help restore balance to the projected ecosystem by altering the sound and light in the space. This reveals how key agents in soil formation are affected by external forces like the stock market—reflecting how speculative financial activities, upon which organic life ultimately depends, influence and distort the biological cycles of our world.

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Visitor presence and interaction contributes to the virtual biodiversity of the space, repairing broken pathways and revitalising the soil, supporting the seeds to germinate.

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The installation offers a critical reflection on the accelerating pace of computational and speculative processes in the market, challenging our perception of human and more-than-human relationships in the age of digital capitalism.

 

 

 

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