“Proteo” – johoffmann.com/proteo.htm
animation for the "Pepper's ghost" display
The piece defies a common perception of a protein as a cellular robot. Instead, it treats a protein as a key to explore micro and macro relations, focusing on a complex molecular geometry, its dynamics and origin.
I was enchanted by the geometrical beauty of proteins’ folding alpha helixes, beta sheets and turns. They reminded me of mysterious geometric formations named Calabi-Yau spaces in which, according to the superstring theory, successive dimensions of our world are “curled up” on the subatomic level. If the scientific hypothesis about multi-dimensional nature of the world is true, then Calabi-Yau spaces are everywhere, in each “point” of the space outside as well as inside us.
In my video animation “Proteo”, a fragment of the cosmic space folds into a Calabi-Yau form and gives rise to a convoluted molecule of protein. Its dynamic, molecular “dance of life” ends again in the chaotic cloud of atoms. To present my piece I used a transparent pyramid, creating an effect of a hologram (Pepper’s ghost effect) which can be interpreted as a kind of (virtual) incubator.
