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THE FLY PRINTER - 3 versions 2014-2016

Year
2014-16

Author
1st version: 2014 The Fly Printer (Prototype No.3) by Laura Beloff & Maria Antonia González Valerio // first 6 images

2nd experiment: 2015 Fly Printer - Danish Crown by Laura Beloff // following 6 images

3rd version with AI: 2015-2016 Fly Printer - Extended by Laura Beloff & Malena Klaus // following 5 images

Image credits: Laura Beloff, Rosemary Lee, Anna Autio

THE FLY PRINTER series (Beloff & Co 2014-16)

The Fly Printer developed as a series of experiments, three of them became as exhibitable artifacts.

3rd version (an experiment employing AI): The final work in the Fly Printer series, Fly Printer-Extended (2015–16), was created in collaboration between Laura Beloff and Malena Klaus. Building on earlier iterations, this version incorporates intelligent technology that interprets the biological traces left by fruit flies. The technological component was developed by Malena Klaus, who designed a software system based on a neural network capable of image recognition. The artwork reflects on the growing reliance on automated and autonomous systems in contemporary society, particularly those powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Although these systems are often described as capable of learning, they also reveal fundamental limitations. At the time the work was created (2015–16), image recognition systems frequently overinterpreted visual input, exposing significant differences between how neural networks and humans perceive and assign meaning to images. An image that appears completely abstract or unrecognizable to a human observer may nevertheless be confidently classified by an AI system as a familiar object. Fly Printer-Extended explores this paradox. The system attempts to interpret images generated by a community of fruit flies—images that are inherently abstract and meaningless to human perception. As the flies gradually produce more dots on the paper, the neural network continuously updates its interpretation every few minutes, creating an evolving dialogue between biological activity and machine perception. In the installation, a projected image visualizes the AI's interpretation of the artwork. It displays the dots created by the fruit flies, with randomly generated connecting lines suggesting the outline of a drawing. Around the image, the AI presents its current classifications, assigning probabilities to what it believes the image depicts—for example, UMBRELLAS (14%), RADIO TELESCOPE (12%), or PIRATE (11%). By contrasting human perception with machine interpretation, Fly Printer-Extended invites viewers to reflect on the evolving relationship between humans and intelligent technologies, questioning how meaning is constructed, how vision is mediated, and how artificial systems increasingly shape our understanding of the world.

1st version (physical and idea experiment): The very first experiment and idea for the Fly Printer -series, The Fly Printer (Prototype No.3), was initiated in 2014 through a collaboration between Laura Beloff and Maria Antonia Gonzalez Valerio. Fly Printer is a printing apparatus in the form of a closed environment inhabited by a colony of fruit flies. The flies are fed a specially prepared mixture containing laser printer inks. As they digest the food, they gradually deposit coloured dots onto a sheet of paper, creating a slowly evolving print. In this process, the biological becomes intertwined with the technological—not only at the level of materials, but also in terms of how we perceive and imagine nature. The work examines how technological thinking shapes our understanding of living systems. Contemporary printing technologies have standardized images, paper, and ink, establishing particular conventions of representation and ways of seeing. A similar form of standardization exists in the life sciences through the use of model organisms. The fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), for example, has long served as a model organism in genetic research, based on the assumption that knowledge gained from it can be generalized to other species. In the Fly Printer, this familiar model organism replaces a standard component of contemporary printing technology. Rather than ink being mechanically deposited by a print head, living organisms become the agents of image production. The work blurs the boundaries between the engineered and the organic, bringing the biological and the technological together within a single apparatus. By disrupting the conventions of mechanical image-making, Fly Printer proposes an alternative way of producing and perceiving images, opening a space where biological processes and technological systems intersect, and inviting viewers to reconsider the frameworks through which the world is made visible.

2nd version (formal, structural experiment): During 2014–15, Beloff continued developing the Fly Printer through extensive experimentation with different forms, habitats, food mixtures, and environmental conditions for the fruit flies. While the underlying concept remained unchanged, the apparatus was redesigned using components from Danish coffee makers—initially a Santos (later Bodum) coffee pot parts, which were assembled into a new habitat for the flies. The resulting structure came to resemble the iconic Danish royal crown, giving rise to the title the Fly Printer – Danish Crown . In this version, the four printing colours are separated into individual spherical compartments, each containing food mixed with a different printer ink. Initially, the flies produce monochromatic dot patterns beneath each compartment. Over time, however, as the flies move freely between the interconnected chambers, the colour palette gradually becomes mixed, transforming the prints from monochromatic fields into multicoloured compositions. The resulting images reveal both the mobility of the insects and the unpredictable interplay between biological behaviour and the logic of the printing system.

Images on the right are in chronological order, the first version images are on the top.