Artist Profile Gumi Guihan Lu

Artist Statement

Customized Biorhythm envisions a world where human intervention and technological innovations challenge or subvert conventional processes and natural laws. In this vision, facing environmental degradation and poverty, humanity opts to redesign flora and fauna as a solution. This historical backdrop gives rise to a new ecosystem era called “Generinature.” In this era, the National Biological Center cultivates eight different tiers of plants, classified by the degree of human intervention they receive. Plants with less intervention have their rights to life and autonomous reproduction more respected, thus becoming more precious and rare.

Customized Biorhythm focuses on the study of “controlled plants”, which have been scientifically re-engineered to alter their biological rhythms. Researchers grant these plants new growth patterns, enabling them to grow and mature on a set schedule rather than following natural day-night cycles. This artificial intervention results in the death of plants unable to adapt to the new rhythm, leaving only the carefully domesticated varieties. In this new age, researchers act like modern-day wizards, using environmental factors such as light and temperature to tame plants and reset their biological clocks. “Custom Biological Rhythms” introduces lunar cycles and diurnal changes to regulate plants, like basil, which completes its entire growth process within a 27.32-day lunar cycle. This practice is based on plants’ genetic responses to everyday environmental changes, utilizing key metabolic pathways in the plant lifecycle. These pathways are extremely sensitive to the intensity, quality, and cycle of light, ensuring that the plant’s metabolic activities are synchronized with artificially created environmental conditions. Through this method, the light-domesticated plants align their internal biological clocks with the external environment.

Red and blue spotlights simulate the moon’s illuminated surface, their placement and sequence designed to mimic lunar phase changes. From above, this layout resembles the moon’s current real-time state. Adjacent equipment includes a windmill-shaped “time wheel” that starts at 6 AM, lighting up a strip of lights every hour until 5 PM when all lights are on. From 6 PM, the entire system shuts down until the next morning at 6 AM. Moreover, a U-shaped tube containing 600 milliliters of nutrient solution uses nanoporosity plastic at both ends to ensure light penetration while allowing air exchange. Seeds are wrapped in rock wool and placed in a transparent sleeve to ensure continuous nutrient supply and prevent problems associated with consecutive cropping. As the rock wool absorbs the nutrient solution, the liquid level gradually decreases, and the hydroponic system’s nutrient solution does not need replacing within one growth cycle. When someone walks by, the equipment emits a rustling rain sound, with human-induced vibrations transmitted through plant cells.

Artist Biography

Gumi Guihan Lu is an interdisciplinary artist, originally from Chongqing, China, and now based in New Jersey, USA. She holds a Master’s in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham. In her work, Gumi explores choices and evolution in non-human-dominated scenarios by designing machines for extreme future settings. Her projects often use a first-person perspective, imbuing non-human entities with human emotions and attention. This creates a sense of vulnerability, loss, alienation, ambiguity, and regret, portraying a kind of embrace between humans and invisible life forms, grounded in solitude.