the aperture of chlorophyll

A fragment from a poem is typed on a small plant leaf, an intricate drawing laser-engraved on another.  In the digital light and shadow of the colour LCD screens behind them, these perforations gleam and flicker.  Kai Lossgott's latest work merges his plant leaf engravings with his experimental films.  

Influenced by global evidence of climate change, we are currently re-defining our collective and personal identities.  As we begin to realise we are part of a living system, we ask:  what is the borderline of intelligent life?  Plants, for instance, store and process information in sophisticated ways, communicating chemically with their environment.  They are capable of learning, and plan for future environmental conditions.  Their functions for respiration, digestion, cell growth, reproduction and immunity are comparable to ours.

With this meditation on photosynthesis, the artist revisits his idea that plants see with their skin.  Like  human skin, light sensitive film or paper, or a digital camera CCD, plants absorb light.  They do this in the red and blue regions of the visible light spectrum through the pigment chlorophyll.  (Green light is not absorbed but reflected, making the plant appear green.)  Through this process leaves convert solar energy intro the nutrients and oxygen human and animal life depend on.

The light-sensitive pigment chlorophyll has in fact no opening regulated like a camera’s aperture stop or the human eye’s iris to adjust the amount of light or dark required for the perception of images as we know them.  Although they perceive light, plants ‘feel’ more than ‘see’ it.  Plants use the same molecules and pathways to drive their circadian rhythms as humans and animals.  Lossgott explores the subtle changes in mood, heart rate, breath and mental activity that occur in humans with the coming and going of day and night.  Awake or asleep, we have more in common with our distant evolutionary cousins than we know.

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