Art Event Two

For my second art event I went to Natalie Jeremijenko' presentation on her own artwork. Natalie is an artist and engineer who is currently the director of her own work, called the "X Design" Environmental Health Clinic. She describes herself as a thinkger, meaning she brings her engineering talent into her artwork as well. She was born in Queensland, Australia in 1966 and was one of ten children in her family. She has a background in physics, biochemistry, neuroscience, and precision engineering. Natalie's work primarily focuses on the relationship between the environment, people, and technology. Her work for her X Design allows her to experiment with the opportunities new technologies gives society and allows non violent changes in the world. She is currently Natalie is a visiting professor at Royal College of Art, London and an artist not-in-residence at the Institute for the Future.

Natalie's main experiments focus on her X Design Environmental Health Clinic. The X Design Environmental Health Clinic is modeled after other health clinics around the world. The difference in her clinic is that people come in to voice their concern over environmental issues instead of their own issues. When they leave, they are given a referral to different projects around the area that can help with their particular concern over the environment. It is entirely up to the person's concern whither they want to listen to the advice given or not, just like it is up to a person to help themselves if they want to quit smoking or drinking, etc. One project the X Design Clinic has created is the "GreenLight". This project was created for people who want to introduce more environmentally friendly lighting in their homes. It is a product based off the distribution of lights that are able to diffuse light through a natural process of photosynthesis. It is a project to improve the air quality of homes throughout the country. 

Another project of the X Design Clinic is the "Robotic Geese" experiment. This is where patients are able to take a robotic goose created by the clinic and take it out to ponds or lakes and interact with real geese or swans in a way that people normally can never do. They can "talk" to the geese using their own words or using pre-recorded sounds. Overall, I found Natalie's work very interesting. She was very involved in the biology aspect of the environment which I am also interested in. Her projects are all very environmental friendly and could one day become major projects that could affect the country or even the world. Until then, she should keep developing new ways to help the environment in interactive ways that allow society to become more involved in her experiments as well.