A monumental interactive AR experience, Nancy Baker Cahill’s Substrate invites the viewer to consider connections between knowledge-making organizations by contributing their own descriptions of culturally significant artifacts. Borrowing imagery and examples from networks in nature, Baker Cahill depicts LACMA, the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library, and California’s system of community colleges as abstracted, interlocking trees with root systems and mycelial networks that produce essential nutrients for human health and well-being. The work is based on the artist’s earlier project of the same name, supported by LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab, which used futuristic civics and systems thinking to demonstrate the potential of collaborations between local civic hubs.
You can now find Substrate on BCAM, Level 3, when you visit the museum.