In the context of the global decline in invertebrate (insect and spider) populations and species diversity, we invite you to join us in a collaborative mapping exercise: to notice and become sensitive to spider/web eccologies. Through this shared activity, we hope to map spider/web species richness and diversity within the multispecies ecologies that we share.
Recognising the history of mapping practices in establishing geopolitical divisions and boundaries that exclude and reinforce hierarchical distributions of power and claims to land and natural resources, we imagine these as spider/web counter-cartographies, an attempt to tell the neglected histories of spider/webs. In these counter-cartographies, mapping is engaged as a means of visualising and raising awareness of spider/web habitats as constitutive elements of broader, more-than-human ecologies. Collective mapping allows us to access new scales and new points of view through which to collaboratively think through concepts of multispecies care, extinction, and the possibilities for living together in catastrophic times.
Insect life far outweighs human life: insects make up half of the 2 gigatons of animal life on this planet. It is often hard to reconcile the idea of extinction with creatures that seem so abundant. However, according to recent data, insect populations are declining at a rate of 2.5% per year - suggesting that they might be extinct by the end of the century. A number of scientists have argued that we are now bearing witness to the dawn of a sixth mass extinction. An insect armageddon would be catastrophic for human and other forms of life. Invertebrate animals (insects and spiders) are critical elements of our shared and entangled ecologies: among other things, insects are responsible for pollination of mainstay crops, decomposition of organic material (creating the humus that is an essential component of fungal, bacterial and life cycles), and also providing a critical food source for birds and other higher order animals.
Essentially - the death of insects would trigger a catastrophic ripple effect in the ecologies and systems that support life on Earth; what scientists have called a “bottom-up trophic cascade”, whose knock-on effects would be disastrous for both plant and animal life.
Spiders spin tiny Universes. Formed of complex interwoven networks suspended in air, the Hybrid Websunique architectures originate from inter-specific encounters between unrelated solitary, social and semi-social spider species. As different spiders from different species weave in the same space, bridging the architectures of each other’s webs, each one of them tells a story of hybrid relationships, entangling not only different arachnid webbed ecosystems, but also human and more-than-human worlds. In this series, floating galaxies made of different silk and web types collide, challenging gravity and fostering the emergence of new kinds of vibrational environments. There, sensory worlds and lines of communication merge and connect, the web being considered an extension of the spider’s sensorial and cognitive systems.
The works’ titles feature the names, genus and species of the spider collaborators who came together to tune their strings, and the amount of time needed to shape and compose their three-dimensional webs.
From these encounters, emerges a space where multitudes observe themselves in the very act of becoming a community: a spatial condition of physical immersion in an environment where stories of co-existence between humans and other species materialize. Engaging in those collaborative relationships and creative dynamics – the web sometimes becoming a musical instrument – is a way of attuning to others’ Umwelten, towards novel ways of living together. As Eben Kirskey puts it, “emergent dynamics can destroy the existing order”, but they “can also figure into collective hopes.”
“Life is not just about matter and how it immediately interacts with itself but also how that matter interacts in interconnected systems that include organisms in their separately perceiving worlds – worlds that are necessarily incomplete, even for scientists and philosophers who, like there objects of study, form only a tiny part of the giant perhaps infinite universe they observe”
(Dorian Sagan, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, with a Theory of Meaning, 1934)
“Spiders, we now understand, have given us a model of which the present is a simulacrum, though not just the technocratic, seemingly intangible future-present of life online but also the real-world urgency of environmental relationships and their fragility.”
(David Toop, Filament Drums: the Endless Instrument, in Cosmic Jive: The Spider Sessions, 2014)
“Forget about spider man and his meek two-dimensional webs! Even though spider webs have been around for at least 140 million years, we have never managed to preserve, measure and display their webs in a three dimensional form. Tomás Saraceno has opened our eyes to the intricate geometry of spider webs with his newly invented scanning instrument that digitized for the first time a three-dimensional web. In fact, there is no single museum in the world with a collection of this kind. His spider web sculptures are a breakthrough in both science and art, and thanks to his methods and technique he has enabled much needed comparative studies in mathematics, engineering and arachnology, opening new fields of studies.”
(Peter Jäger, Head of Arachnology, Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt am Main, and co-author of the World Spider Catalog, 2015)
Tomás Saraceno: We are trying to learn about spiders’ behavior and net making and we would like to learn more about the origin of the uni-verse…But maybe you could start by explaining the project first and also this analogy between the cosmic filaments and a spider web.
Volker Springel: … The cosmic web, that’s how we astronomers talk about the big picture, how the universe as a whole presents itself and how galaxies are arranged on large scales. I can show you a flight through the universe. As we think it is. The stuff that is colorful here is actually matter which you can’t really see. On the computer we can paint it and we can illuminate it. What is visible a little bit here is that the backbone of structure of the universe consists of these filament-like structures, which are part of the cosmic web, and along these we find galaxies that are arranged like pearls on a string…We hope to find evidence for unknown elementary particles that we think make up most of the matter in the universe. All of this stuff that is red and yellow here are particles we have not discovered yet on earth.
(Excerpts from a conversation with Volker Springel at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich, Germany, on February 17, 2009)
3-DIMENSIONAL PHYSICAL ARCHIVE (INVERTEBRATE ARCHITECTURES)
Since 2006, Tomás Saraceno has been articulating a shift in focus, to unfold arachnid research from the perspective of the web. According to numerous studies that have argued that the web is an extension of the spider’s sensory and also cognitive systems - our approach is not to consider the web as separate to the web-building spider, but a living material assemblage we think of in terms of the conjunctive neologism: the spider/web.
Museological collections tend to focus on the spider in isolation of its web. We argue for the importance of attending to the material architectures (webs) that connect the spider to the world, and which also might propose different stories about evolution and niche adaptation, for instance.
In response to this, and in collaboration with people and institutions across knowledge fields, Studio Tomás Saraceno hosts the only existing archive of physical three-dimensional spider/webs. This archive includes both representative webs from major web typologies, and also Hybrid Spider/Webs - the multispecies material encounters conceived and realised by Saraceno, which weaves together the unique web architectures of several unrelated species of spider, exhibiting varying degrees of sociality.
This web archive will act as a shared resource for scientific and artistic inquiry - eventually, we hope, articulating a different classification or understanding of spider speciation that emerges from the web itself. In addition, the physical archive will be gradually complemented by a growing 3D archive of spider/webs, at present containing 3D models of complex Cyrtophora citricola and Latrodectus mactans spider/webs.
Hybrid Spider/Webs
Hybrid Spider / Webs are a novel kind of web typology conceived and realised by Saraceno with the assistance of multitudes of arachnid kin. A hybrid web is one built by two or more different spider species, each of which build unique and typologically distinct webs. According to the sociality of the spiders building these webs (whether a solitary but tolerant orb web-building spider from the Nephila family, or a semi-social tent web-building Cyrtophora spider), the spider might adapt part of the existing web structure that it encounters when building its own web, or destroy part or all of the existing web and build anew. The spider species building each individual Hybrid Spider/Web are often sourced from geographically remote locations, and thus would not be encountered outside of this laboratory setting.
Hybrid Spider/Webs are constructed in an open frame carbon fibre structure (Spider Web Frame), conceived and designed by Saraceno, which provides attachment points for the webs, and allows for observation of the web-building process and display of the completed hybrid web sculpture.
Each Hybrid Spider/Web is also an experimental architecture for studying spider social behaviour. In that context, Saraceno refers to them as ‘multispecies instruments’ – because they are woven by multiple species of spider, but also because of their perceived potential for opening up channels of communication across species barriers, becoming the vehicle and substrate for acoustic (vibrational) dialogues between spiders and humans. Each Hybrid Spider Web is thus figured as a unique musical instrument, whose complex networked architecture performs as an apparatus for interspecies communication, cooperation, mediation and sensing.
Future research of the Spider/Web Research Group into Hybrid Spider/Webs will include:
- Integration of new varieties of spider species (and thus new web typologies)
- Observational experiments on Hybrid Spider/Web structures, signalling properties and web-building behaviours - to be developed in an extended Hybrid -Spider/Web methodology paper.
- Studies of hybridization as a strategy for survival
...The processual and patterned production of hybrid webs at Studio Tomás Saraceno inspires thought on the axes of more-than-human sympoeisis, on collaboration between and across multitudes of creatures, and on a spectrum of social and semi-social encounter between different species...
(Sasha Engelmann (2016). ‘Social spiders and hybrid webs at Studio Tomás Saraceno’, Cultural Geographies 24.1)
2-DIMENSIONAL WEBS ARCHIVE
A spider/web begins with a single thread of silk cast out into the air, loose and undulating until pulled taut by the wind. Each thread of spider silk is a web in becoming, adrift on air until it meets a surface, bridging the spider/webs ability to write their passage, their drifting and ways forward. Spider/web prints therefore become the real-life maps of suspended cities inhabited by spider/webs.
A series of topological inquiries is created from spider webs which have been coloured with a lightweight combination of ink and cosmic dust and then fixed to archival paper, creating a drawn sculptural presence. The webs are partly built by so-called social spiders, a small minority among otherwise solitary insects, composing unique multi-generational and multi-species structures that would not occur in the wild.
With their luggage packed, and spinnerets readied, spiders map our environment creating drawings in the air, inspiring us to pursue a different kinship with the Earth, and with human and non-human species. Supervising their development, the artist touches upon key principles of social organization – cooperation, co-habitation and hybridity.
3-DIMENSIONAL DIGITAL ARCHIVE
(TEXT IS MISSING) A spider/web begins with a single thread of silk cast out into the air, loose and undulating until pulled taut by the wind. Each thread of spider silk is a web in becoming, adrift on air until it meets a surface, bridging the spider/webs ability to write their passage, their drifting and ways forward. Spider/web prints therefore become the real-life maps of suspended cities inhabited by spider/webs.
A series of topological inquiries is created from spider webs which have been coloured with a lightweight combination of ink and cosmic dust and then fixed to archival paper, creating a drawn sculptural presence. The webs are partly built by so-called social spiders, a small minority among otherwise solitary insects, composing unique multi-generational and multi-species structures that would not occur in the wild.
With their luggage packed, and spinnerets readied, spiders map our environment creating drawings in the air, inspiring us to pursue a different kinship with the Earth, and with human and non-human species. Supervising their development, the artist touches upon key principles of social organization – cooperation, co-habitation and hybridity.
Spider Web Scanning of a three-dimensional Cyrtophora citricola web, using the Spider Web Scan - a laser-supported tomographic method developed by Tomás Saraceno in 2009/2010, in collaboration with researchers from the TU Darmstadt. Using this method, for the first time researchers were able to generate precise 3-D models of complex spider web architectures.
The Spider Web Scan is a laser-supported tomographic method - originally developed by Tomás Saraceno in collaboration with the Photogrammetric Institute, Technische Universität Darmstadt. Spider webs to be scanned are first built by the spiders in the open carbon fibre frame structure designed by Tomás Saraceno (Spider Web Frame). A sliding sheet laser (original setup: red laser, 650 nm) is then used to illuminate vertical slices of the 3D spider web, and 1-2 high-resolution camera(s) used to capture stereoscopic images of illuminated web sections. 2D images (x, y coordinates) are then processed to generate a 3D data model of the scanned web, via a Spider Web Digitization process, which can also involve manual reconstruction of dense and complex sections of the web.
The most recent iteration of the Spider Web Scanner proposes a more automated setup of the original method, and was developed in collaboration with MIT’s Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics, led by Markus Buehler. In this setup, a green sheet laser (532 nm) is used to illuminate 0.5mm slices of a 3D spider web housed in an open carbon Spider Web Frame. The setup also proposed an optimized automated capture system, and improved image processing and image-to-line algorithms.
HISTORY OF THE SPIDER WEB SCANING METHOD
Tomás Saraceno’s research into the webbed world of the spider arose with what appeared, at first glance, to be a relatively simple question:
"Is it possible to recreate a precise
3-Dimensional model
of a spider’s web?"
From this initial question, Saraceno began a conversation with arachnologist Peter Jäger (Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) to explore the possibility of creating a 3D scan of a natural spider web, and using these data to reconstruct a large-scale model of the web for an art exhibition. On Jäger’s suggestion, Saraceno focused on the web of a black widow spider (Latrodectus mactans (Fabricius, 1775)) – chosen because of the relative availability of this spider, and also for the large, complex 3D web that it weaves.
Early efforts to create a 3D scan of this web using existing scanning methods proved unsuccessful – as the unique properties of spider silk (the fineness and reflective qualities of the threads) made it unsuitable for capture by conventional approaches. As the experiments progressed, the collaborative dialogue also grew, enrolling the expertise of Samuel Zschokke (University of Basel) in web construction and evolution, and Christof Wulff (Technische Universität (TU) Darmstadt, Germany) in photogrammetric capture techniques. After exploring a number of different methods that proved inadequate to the task, Saraceno proposed the use of a sheet laser to illuminate and scan complex spider/webs. The successful technical development of this technique was then realized in collaboration with researchers at the TU’s Photogrammetric Institute.
From a two-year collaborative research effort to address this question, Saraceno pioneered the Spider Web Scan technique: a scientific method combining laser supported tomography with photogrammetric analysis, to allow the 3D-scanning of a spider web. This technique has since been developed and refined in cooperation with a number of other scientific institutions. The first successful deployment of this technique was in 2009, with the scanning of the complex, 3D web of the black widow spider.a
TOOLS & METHODS
HOW TO SCAN A 3 DIMENSIONAL SPIDER WEB
Materials
Dark room, 5 x 10 metres. You can make your own by covering walls and windows with black Molton
Three-dimensional spider web, built in a carbon frame. In Southern Europe, you might collaborate with a Cyrtophora citricola that builds a three-dimensional tent web. In Northern Europe, you could try this experiment with a Steatoda web. In Australia and SE Asia, …. In Africa, …...
Green sheet laser 532 nm with a width of 1 mm
Single high-resolution camera (for example Canon EOSD, with images upwards of 5184 pixels x 3456 pixels)
24-70 mm f/4 L EF IS USM lens
Remote control camera shutter timer
A moving rail, assembled from:
2 x linear shafts (stainless steel), 1200 mm long / 12 mm diameter
2 x L-shape aluminium beam
CNC controller board
24V stepper motor (holding torque 6 Nm; step angle 1.88; subdivision of 16; wheel diameter 2cm)
Small pieces (ironware, linear bearings, rubber belt, supporting stand, table, extra parts, camera fixations etc.)
Matlab software
Desktop computer and screen for 3D resolution
Method
Set the 3D spider/web on a stable surface in a prepared dark room.
The camera should be centred onto the first moving rail.
The green laser should be positioned on the second moving rail, which is parallel to the first rail. The laser beam should be at a 90 degree angle to the camera axis.
Laser and camera should then be synchronised.
The shutter timer and stepper motor should also be synchronised, allowing a 3 second pause between each snapshot.
Following synchronisation, image capture can occur by moving the rail (camera and laser) in 0.5 mm increments through the web, at intervals of 11 seconds to allow time for stabilization between image captures.
Repeat the process until the entire spider/web is scanned. Depending on the complexity of the web, this might take upwards of 660 images to visualize the entire fibre architecture.
Use image processing software to transform the 2d images into a 3D skeleton frame. The images may require processing to reduce noise
ARCHIVE OF 3D WEB SCANNERS
Since its original development, the Spider Web Scan has been taken up, developed and refined in collaboration with a number of other scientific institutions, who have deployed the technique in studies spanning biomimicry and biomateriomics to animal social behaviour.
Spider Web Scanner 1.0
Year: 2010
Web scanned: Latrodectus mactans (black widow)
Technical setup: Web housed in perspex container; red sheet laser (650 nm) used to illuminate 1 mm sections of the web; non-automated capture of stereoscopic images of each illuminated slice via two (2) DSLR cameras; scanned data converted to digital web model using computational methodology refined by the studio
Collaborative team: Studio Tomás Saraceno with: Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt (Peter Jäger, advice on selection of spider species/web typology); Institut für Photogrammetrie und Kartographie, TU Darmstadt (Christof Wulff).
Scientific outputs 3D-Rekonstruktion von Spinnennetzen. Luhmann, T. (2010). In Nahbereichsphotogrammetrie: Grundlagen, Methoden und Anwendungen (3rd editio, pp. 610–611). Heidelberg: Wichmann Verlag.
Festschrift anlässlich der Pensionierung von Dr.-Ing. Rolf-Dieter Düppe nach 36 Jahren am Institut für Photogrammetrie und Kartographie. Wulff, C. (2010). In Schriftenreihe / Fachrichtung Geodäsie, Fachbereich Bauingenieurwesen und Geodäsie, Technische Universität Darmstadt (Vol. 30, pp. 101–108). Darmstadt: Technische Universität Darmstadt.
Spider Web Scanner 2.0
Year: 2014
Web scanned: Cyrtophora citricola
Technical setup: Spider Web Scanner 1.0 setup, with the following modifications: use of open carbon frame to house the spider web; red sheet laser used to illuminate 0.5mm slices of the web (allowing better visualisation of the fibre architecture); use of single DSLR camera (Canon EOS 5D Mk III) for image capture.
Collaborative team: Studio Tomás Saraceno with IIT (Italian Institute of Technology) Genoa, Italy.
Spider Web Scanner 3.0
Year: 2014-2015
Web scanned: Latrodectus mactans (black widow) and Cyrtophora citricola
Technical setup: Spider Web Scanner 2.0 setup, with the following modifications: automated image capture process.
Collaborative team: Studio Tomás Saraceno with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (CAST and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, led by Markus Buehler).
Scientific outputs Structural and mechanical analysis of the black widow spider web subjected to stretching, expansion and wind. Demien, B. (2014). Master’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Spider Web Scanner 4.0
Year: 2016-2017
Web scanned: Cyrtophora citricola single and communal spider/webs
Technical setup: Spider Web Scanner 3.0 setup, with the following modifications: use of Sony Alpha7s camera for image capture.
Collaborative team: Studio Tomás Saraceno with Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (Animal and Collective Behaviour Group, led by Alex Jordan/ Matthew Lutz)
Spider Web Scanner 5.0
Year: 2017
Web scanned: Cyrtophora citricola
Technical setup: Spider Web Scanner 3.0 setup, with the following modifications: green sheet laser (532 nm) used to illuminate 0.5mm slices of the web; new optimized automated capture system; improved image processing and image-to-line algorithms
Collaborative team: Studio Tomás Saraceno with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering led by Markus Buehler)
Scientific outputs Imaging and analysis of a three-dimensional spider web architecture. Su, I., Qin, Z., Saraceno, T., Krell, A., Mühlethaler, R., Bisshop, A., & Buehler, M. J. (2018). In Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
COLLABORATIVE APPLICATIONS
Since its creation, the Spider Web Scan method has inspired a suite of collaborative applications across different scientific and applied research domains, through which the original method has since been modified and expanded.
MIT: Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics and CAST
Studio Tomás Saraceno’s collaboration with MIT’s Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics (LAMM, led by Professor Markus Buehler) and Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST, led by Professor Evan Ziporyn) began in 2012.
Brief history of collaboration: In 2012, Saraceno was invited by MIT’s Leila Kinney as the Inaugural Visiting Artist at the newly established MIT Centre for Art, Science and Technology (CAST), led by Professor Evan Ziporyn. From this invitation, Saraceno was introduced to Buehler, and the work of his lab into the biomateriomics of spider/webs and spider silk. After several productive, stimulating and invigorating discussions, a long-term collaboration was borne - which tests the boundaries of scientific disciplines, toward new ways of thinking together to address the emergent and multifaceted issues arising from the entanglements between human and nonhuman worlds in the Anthropocenic era.
In a continuing collaboration with the MIT LAMM (led by Professor Markus Buehler), the Spider Web Scan apparatus and method has been refined, automated, and used to study the functional dynamics of web architectures. Inspired by the potential insights into material engineering that could be generated by Studio Tomás Saraceno’s Spider Web Scan apparatus and method, this team of MIT researchers have used the Spider Web Scan technique to generate novel data about the material properties of complex spider/webs for possible application across art, architecture, engineering and material science, while working collaboratively with the studio to optimize the scanning system. This collaborative research uses the spider/web as an entry point for reflecting on the role of biomimicry—the creative application of natural systems and processes towards solutions for anthropogenic environments—and biomateriomics—the holistic study of biological material systems. Saraceno and Buehler have presented the outputs of their collaboration in a number of formats, including public symposia at MIT and scientific publications.
Recently, and on the invitation of Saraceno to realise a musical performance for his ON AIR exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, our collaborators at MIT (including researchers from both LAMM and CAST) used a 3D model of a scanned, quasi-social Cyrtophora citricola web to generate a 3D digital spider web musical instrument.
This instrument generates a navigable soundscape by using data sonification to transform the web’s spatial topology into audio signals, and data visualisation to create an immersive encounter. The 3D spider web instrument and interface - designed by Markus Buehler, Evan Ziporyn and MIT researchers Isabelle Su and Ian Hatwick was generated via the most recent collaborative refinement of Saraceno’s Spider Web Scan. It then formed the basis of a musical score realised by Ziporyn in collaboration with Su and musician Christine Southworth. This work, The Spider’s Canvas, premiered at an immersive concert hosted during Saraceno’s ON AIR exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in November 2018, and supported by Festival dÀutomne, Paris . This concert emerged from myriad interactions between different disciplines, in an effort to work together - and extend the boundaries of disciplinary knowledge and practices - toward new understandings of emergent human and non-human entanglements.
Max Planck Institute
In ongoing experiments with group animal behaviour researchers from the Max Planck Institute, the Spider Web Scan has been used in conjunction with a real-time tracking system to study web-building behaviour of semi-social spiders, in parallel with analyses of different stages of web architectures.
Inspired by Saraceno’s extensive collection of three-dimensional spider/webs—the largest in existence—and by the possibilities of the Spider Web Scan, in 2016 the studio was approached by Iain Couzin and Alex Jordan from the Max Planck Institute (Konstanz) to begin a collaborative research endeavour. Sharing these resources and methods offers the potential to generate new insights into the collective behaviour of social and semi-social spider species, and the relationship of group behaviour to the materiality and signaling properties of the spider/web. In 2017, a postdoctoral researcher from the Jordan Lab, Matthew Lutz, joined the studio for a one-year research residency to study the relationship between web structure and sociality, using the Spider Web Scan technique to study the complex spider/webs of semi-social Cyrtophora citricola spiders.
IIT (Italian Institute of Technology) Genoa, Italy
In 2014, Studio Tomas Saraceno continued technical experiments and development of the Spider Web Scan technique and apparatus, working with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Italy, and in consultation with arachnologist Peter Jäger at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt am Main.
From these experiments, digital photographs of a three-dimensional Cyrtophora citricola spider web were produced. Instructed by Saraceno, technicians at the Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision department at ITT produced different images depicting a 10 mm section of this complex 3-D web. The
research was conducted in collaboration with:
Alessio Del Bue (Researcher, PAVIS department: 3D reconstruction from images);
Paolo Bianchini (Researcher, Nanophysic department: Optical setup configuration);
Carlos Beltran Gonzalez (Technician, PAVIS department: image calibration, acquisition and analysis); and
Vittorio Murino (Head of PAVIS department: Coordinator)
Three-dimensional scanning images of a Cyrtophora citricola web produced by researchers at the IIT, using the laser-supported tomographic Spider Web Scan technique originally developed by Studio Tomás Saraceno with researchers at the TU Darmstadt.
SPIDER WEB DIGITALIZATION
The next step in this process was to develop a computational methodology capable of extracting digital data from the spider web scans. Working with his studio team, Saraceno developed the Spider Web Digitization method – which allowed 3D information about the Latrodectus mactans web to be assembled from 110 pairs of stereoscopic slides of the web captured by the scanning process. Structural ‘gaps’ in the scanned images – areas of the webs where the stereoscopic photos were unable to capture the detail of the silk thread structure – were reconstructed after an analysis of the total web architecture. Through a process called orthographic projection these data were compressed into two dimensions, creating a map of intersecting black lines – with each line and each point assigned a unique number.
SPIDER WEB RECONSTRUCTION
The final stage of this intensive research process was the development of an analogue method for reconstructing a physical, large-scale 3D-model of the web, based on the 3D scanning and digital data. To this end, Saraceno and his studio team developed the Spider Web Reconstruction method, which was realised and refined during the construction of a 17:1 scale installation of the Latrodectus mactans spider web, realised for the art installation 14 Billions (Working Title) at Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm in 2010. This groundbreaking installation offered a novel human-scale perspective on complex animal architectures, and provided a physical model for visualising parallels between arachnid and cosmic geometries.
