Pillars of Creation

Henry Tan, Masato Takemura, Pakchira Chartpanyawut, Weeratouch Pongruengkiat, Woraporn Pongsamart, Dr. Pat Pataranutaporn, Jirapat Thaweechuen, Tanis Phongpisantham, Pongsakorn Wechakarn, Sumeth Klomchitcharoen, and Kookpedz Studio

2024

Clinostat LED hologram, brain organoid incubator, electrode array prototype, tourbillon dementia clock, DNA printer prototype, laser projection, hamsa rug; 108.27 x 86.6 x 84.65 in.

Presented as part of Emergence: Art from Life

Henry Tan and Masato Takemura are members of Japan’s metaPhorest lab, which describes itself as “a platform for experimentation, research and production in the realm of ‘life’-themed art,” and Thailand’s FREAK Lab, which describes itself as “an anti-disciplinary research cluster that converges arts, science, and technology for… exploring the symbiotic relationship between the human and emerging technologies.” In combination with this DIY-science sensibility, many of Tan’s and Takemura’s pieces draw on the mythologies, beliefs, and practices of different cultures and traditions to interrogate our understanding of how new life comes to be or old worlds end. These works also share a public, communal element, reflecting the collaborative process of myth-making. 

Pillars of Creation (2024) develops the idea of a merged digital-organic organism in a sculpture inspired by the Brahma statue at Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand. Brahma figures in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, but the Brahma at Erawan Shrine is the object of a wider, syncretic worship, drawing enthusiastic supplicants of diverse beliefs and none. Like traditional depictions of Brahma, Pillars of Creation has four arms. Each balances a symbolic scientific artifact representing knowledge, time, sacrifice, and cosmic energy, taking the place of Brahma’s scroll, rosary, scepter, and water vessel, respectively. In some legends, Brahma created himself; Takemura and Tan imply that open-source, DIY biotechnology allows humans to make themselves into gods. Today, synthetic biology grants scientists the ability to make or modify living beings or even bring extinct species back from the dead. The question is not whether these new life forms will come into existence, but how they will embody our own anxieties, hopes, and desires. Across Emergence, stem cells, yeast bacteria, and other organic elements pull such questions out of the realm of pure contemplation and into one of conversation with Pillars of Creation; for it, too, is alive. 

— Natasha K. Boyd

Image credit: Carson Davis Brown

Pillars of Creation was featured in Emergence: Art from Life, an exhibition at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, as part of PST ART. Presented by Getty, PST ART returned in September 2024 with Art & Science Collide, a regional event exploring the connections between art and science, past and present.

Thank you PST ART; JACCC; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles for your support of Emergence.