Future Frogscapes
2023, 3channel AI video
장윤영 Yunyoung Jang 

Unfold X Festival, Culture Station Seoul 284, 2023
Sonar + D, Art Korea Lab, 2024
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본 프로젝트는 하나의 유기체를 둘러싼 생태계와 진화를 탐구한다. 작가는 다양한 생물군 중 사지동물에서 가장 원시적인 생명체인 양서류를 선택, 그중 가장 큰 비중을 차지하고 있는 개구리를 중점적으로 다루고 있다.
작가는 이번 작업에서 ‘개구리는 미래의 환경에서 어떤 모습으로 진화할 수 있는가?’라는 질문을 기반으로, 오염된 물과 땅에서 경쟁하는 기생 생물, 숙주에 대한 정보를 수집하고 개구리 목의 투과성 피부 안팎에서 일어나는 일련의 사건들과 이들의 진화를 연결 짓는다.
개구리의 유생, 올챙이의 피부가 주변 세계의 역동적인 변화를 흡수하는 동안, 그들의 DNA 내에서 돌연변이가 발생하고, 그들의 몸에서는 적게는 세 개, 많게는 열두 개의 다리가 돋아난다. 돌연변이가 발생한 몸은 우리에게 진화의 과정을 보여준다. 그리고 돌연변이를 포함한 개구리 이미지 데이터 세트를 학습한 인공지능은 변화하는 몸 - 진화의 과정 - 을 반복적으로 기록한다. 공룡의 멸종 이후부터 현재까지 존재해 온 양서류의 미래를 우리는 과연 포착하게 될 수 있을까?
This project explores the ecosystem and evolution surrounding a single organism. The artist chose amphibians, the most primitive form of life, from a wide range of biological groups, focusing on frogs, which are the most primitive of the limbic animals.
Guided by the question, "How might frogs evolve in future environments?" the artist gathers information about their hosts, parasites, and competitors in polluted water and land, and connects their evolution to a series of events in and around the frog's permeable skin.
While the skin of the frog's larvae, or tadpoles, absorbs the dynamic changes in the world around them, a mutation occurs within their DNA, and their bodies sprout as few as three and as many as twelve legs. The mutated body shows us the process of evolution. And an AI trained on a dataset of frog images, including mutations, repeatedly records the changing body - the process of evolution. Will we be able to capture the future of amphibians that have existed since the extinction of the dinosaurs?
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Successive stages of the Frog : In the order of the numbers—from the egg almost to the perfect form. Frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders are the best known Amphibians 

This image is a public domain image, which means either that copyright has expired in the image or the copyright holder has waived their copyright.
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Contributor:Michael Doolittle / Alamy Stock Photo

Information: Yale University Ecology Professor Dr. David Skelly conducts disease research focused on limb deformities in amphibians. The leading suspected cause of deformities involves infection by Ribeiroia ondatrae, a trematode. Exhaustive sampling in Vermont has failed to turn up any evidence of Ribeiroia demonstrating that high frequencies of deformities can occur over a large area in the absence of infection by Ribeiroia ondatrae. These findings leave open the issue of what is causing deformities in Vermont and other regions where Ribeiroia is absent. One possibility, exposure to chemical pollutants, is supported by an association between the risk of deformities and the proximity to agricultural sites.
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Contributor:Michael Doolittle/ Alamy Stock Photo

A second line of disease research is focused on limb deformities in amphibians. The leading suspected cause of deformities involves infection by Ribeiroia ondatrae, a trematode. Exhaustive sampling in Vermont has failed to turn up any evidence of Ribeiroia demonstrating that high frequencies of deformities can occur over a large area in the absence of infection by Ribeiroia ondatrae. These findings leave open the issue of what is causing deformities in Vermont and other regions where Ribeiroia is absent. One possibility, exposure to chemical pollutants, is supported by an association between the risk of deformities and the proximity to agricultural sites.
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< Credits >
Produced & Directed by Yunyoung Jang
AI development : Seonghyeon Kim
Data preprocessing: Yunyoung Jang
Post production: Yunyoung Jang
Sound: Yunyoung Jang, Unhappy Circuit