Electrochemical Glass 1997–2007

In 1997, three metals, copper, aluminium and iron were set on a cotton wool base immersed in a conductive solution and sandwiched between glass. The three metals act as a primitive battery, causing ionic migration of the metals and associated electrochemical reactions. The interaction between the metals, the chemicals and the resultant potential difference is a complex system of cybernetic feedback, which is visually represented by the traces and deposits. The startling tentacle-like growth of the iron dendrites grew forth over a period of months in 2003, six years after the works inception.
The Electrochemical Glass can be viewed as an extremely slow “electrochemical computer”, the potential difference between the three metals as input, the electrochemical processes as program and the tendrils as output, representing changes of energy as the work evolved over time. Pask experimented with electrochemical dendrites, training them to respond to external stimuli as learning devices, the most famous being knows as “Pask’s ear.”