Patterns of a Compost

Venue: ISBN books+gallery 
On view: October 31, 2023 - November 23, 2023
Photos: Zsuzsanna Simon 

Even though it is a mathematical formula, Daisyworld, created by James Lovelock and Andrew Watson, still carries a certain poetic voice, which could possibly exceed its original purpose, that is the representation, or rather, the proof of the Gaia theory. 

With the help of this vastly oversimplified tool, Lovelock wished to illustrate the complex operation of a closed ecosystem, the homeostasis, the infinite chain of interactions between live and lifeless matters. This simulation, in its minimalistic way, shows only few essential agents: the sun, the planet orbiting it, the atmosphere of the planet, and the black and white daisies living on it. 

With their mere existence, these flowers can affect the environmental conditions of the planet, which, following an overpopulation attempt, becomes unideal for the very plant that overpopulated and becomes ideal for the other. Thus, they live in a constant cycle, in the center of the dynamic shifts of their domination nexus, in a series of endless repetitions. 

This system of rules is quite strict, and rethinking the model, other lifeforms can be replaced into it; it can be complicated further, similarly to the fabulation practice. The billowing part-whole relationship persists; the hegemonic state of the existing parts outgrows itself by necessity, and down the system of rules strikes. 

Regardless of how the relationship between the faces of existence evolves, the clash between the parts, or the drama of their mingling, seem to become of lesser importance, as we zoom out of the close-up and realize: the tiny fragments are all part of one larger, breathing body.