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TopIntroduction
Patient Zer0 (Veiga, 2020a, 2020b) is an online interactive generative artwork. It was designed around particle systems—an appropriate metaphor for an airborne virus—and the poem “In Memory of Anyone Unknown to Me” by Elizabeth Jennings (2012, p. 287). It was inspired by, conceived, and designed during the first confinements imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when little or no information was available, and a feeling of helplessness invaded people’s homes. This artwork has been—and still is—showcased in several online exhibitions, but this article contextualises, describes, and analyses, for the first time, the artwork’s algorithmic approach, as well as its aesthetics, the different media components, and the artist’s intentions behind their inclusion and combination.
In line with Sawyer’s (2012) eight-stage model of creativity, design thinking, and Springgay’s, Irwin’s, and Kind’s a/r/tography (2005), a recent creative research method is also presented here: a/r/cography (Veiga, 2019, 2020c, 2021). It identifies seven distinct iterative and generative stages in the creative investigation process, applied in the creation of Patient Zer0: inspiration, trigger, intention, conceptualisation, prototyping, testing, and intervention. This analysis was complemented by a phenomenological dimension, as the author (and creator of Patient Zer0) experienced the events from a physical, intellectual, and emotional perspective, in isolation, while at home in Portugal. The whole process was documented in a digital journal, which not only supported the underlying research but also documented the artwork variants and evolution.
TopBackground: Covid-19, Generative Interactive Art, Creative Research
The COVID-19 Pandemic in Portugal
For most people, the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal, in 2020, were spent indoors, due to the compulsory confinements, during which little was known of the disease, other than its extreme contagiousness and lethality. Medical and health staff, including nurses, firemen, and policemen, as well as essential services staff (electricity, water, fuel, and food), were among the few who had to continue working during those confinements. However, even though both the government and major international health organisations recommended physical isolation and the wearing of masks, many more chose not to abide, potentially putting themselves and others at risk.
While some were busy protecting lives, others were disputing those measures, claiming they were ruining the economy. Perhaps understandably so, as their businesses were shut down, their employees were laid off, and the future felt uncertain and dark. During those days, the world learnt of the Italian people applauding their doctors and nurses from windows and balconies each evening, of neighbourhood concerts from private terraces and also of ambulances carrying COVID-19 patients being stoned (Rodríguez, 2020) and of elderly people being abandoned in homes where they died of starvation (Muñoz, 2020). There were even rushed funerals and mass burials (Hennigan, 2020), without the presence of loved ones. To sum up: 2020 marked one of the darker, sadder pages in our recent global history.
It is not the main purpose of this article to engage in a discussion of health and economic issues and the impacts that the measures adopted to mitigate the spread of the pandemic had on global society. However, this was indeed the actual context in which the author’s creative process took place and is therefore relevant for the analysis of the resulting artwork, hence this brief recall of those dark days. Under those circumstances, creating an interactive online artwork felt like a fruitful direction to pursue, as although most people were locked inside their homes, it could be exhibited in one of the few global spaces where communication was thriving: the Internet. These were, thus, the starting conditions for the interactive online artwork: Patient Zer0.
Figure 1. Patient Zer0 title screen From Veiga (2020a).