Ideal Solutions by The Naturalists Group

Jon Bernson

2024- 2025

Medium: Video installation

Dimensions: Seven Mac monitors: Height: 16.9 inches, Width: 16.8 inches, Depth: 6.8 inches

Price: Upon request

Description: "Ideal Solutions is an asynchronous, multi-channel video installation inspired by The Naturalists Group, an independent scientific collective pursuing research beyond the confines of institutional oversight. Working from a self-contained laboratory on an atoll in international waters, the Naturalists are dedicated to inquiry untethered from a political climate that has become hostile to science, truth, and long-term thinking. The project features seven proposed inventions that respond to imminent planetary challenges. The titles, from left to right, are: 1. Nanosatellite Array 2. Old Growth Modules 3. Semiochemical Translator 4. Earth Genome Project 5. Fresh Water Synthesis 6. Celestial Accretion Monitor 7. Whole Brain Archive As the artist, I function not as the originator, but as a translator of the Naturalists’ ideas, rendering research into visual and sonic form. Each of the seven video works began as a hand-cut paper collage, representing a distinct solution-oriented invention. These collages were then animated through a combination of AI-prompted motion and traditional film editing techniques, resulting in an analog-meets-algorithmic sensibility. Black and white video displayed on vintage iMacs highlights the glacial timelines often required for change and reflects my hope that the solutions to our world's problems remain within reach."