Regenesis Triptych
by Andy Corrigan

Thursday, Mar 20 2025

The Regenesis Triptych is a response to a collaborative project called Awakening by TDCTunes.

“An android awakens in the wreckage of a crashed spacecraft on a desolate, alien planet. Severely damaged and with only a fraction of its former capabilities, it struggles to regain functionality. Initially disoriented it sets out, driven by an innate curiosity and the desire to understand its environment—and itself.”

Awakening - A multidisciplinary art project exploring a stranded android’s struggle to regain functionality and self-awareness.

About the Regenesis Triptych

We find ourselves at an exciting confluence of human experience and technology. As places which care for our past and our future, Libraries and Archives are at its coalface.

Through exploring the positionality of the android, which bridges humanity and machine, my response blends analogue and digital methods to contemplate and visualise some of our most human processes – curiosity, knowledge, and understanding.

This is what excites me about this project. ‘The Regenesis Triptych’ situates archive material, from people like Isaac Newton, with my own contemporary photography to find commonalities across age-old themes such as time, power and sense-making.

The transportability of the triptych form lends itself to digital media. Presented here are three panels in one image, which should be “read” starting with the left-hand panel, followed by the right, and the story ends in the central section.

In stage one of the story, the android emerges confused and disorientated. Piecing together various components, it not only finds the physical parts it needs, but amongst them is a hard drive containing what looks like an archive of historic manuscripts. The images presented in this section are derived from physical objects using different photographic processes – digital photography and cyanotype prints. The archival manuscript images are sourced from Cambridge Digital Library, and here have been corrupted using a jpg glitching tool.

As the components begin to coalesce around a physical form in the second stage, the android begins to make sense of this ocean of information, giving form to knowledge as well. As physical objects begin to take form, both human and machine develop understanding through a series of processes – construction and sense making. This section incorporates imagery generated using AI computer-vision methods to sort this corpus of images by similarity and to detect anthropomorphic forms.

Harmony is achieved in the final stage as the android reaches a pinnacle. Components have become functional objects, concepts of “power” and “order” have developed, and disorientation is replaced by understanding. But thoughts also turn to the future and the prospect of decay, flaking and cracking. As this project evolves, links back to the archival manuscripts will be incorporated and you too can develop an understanding of how these glimpses into the past relate to visions of the future.

List of images used from Cambridge Digital Library:

• Kalāpustaka (MS Add.864): A mandala representation of the rāsalīlā, the joyful dance and amorous sport among Kṛṣṇa and the Gopīs. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Isaac Newton’s Laboratory Notebook (MS Add. 3975) Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Isaac Newton’s Trinity College Notebook (MS Add. 3996) Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Isaac Newton’s Trinity College Notebook (MS Add. 3996) Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Two works on the subjects of Medicine and Anatomy (P. 21): Manṣūr’s Anatomy Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Trilingual compendium of texts (MS Gg.1.1): L’image du monde - representation of Creation Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Trilingual compendium of texts (MS Gg.1.1): Diagram of the human brain with five cells or ventriculi representing the five ‘powers’ of thought (the common or imaging sense, imagination, estimation, cogitation and memory) Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Alfred the Great’s Old English translation of Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care (MS Ii.2.4) Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Didactic miscellany, containing a bestiary and other texts (MS Kk.4.25): Imago mundi, Alexander the Great enthroned cross-legged as armipotens Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• A ‘Sortes’ manuscript including the Experimentarius attributed to Bernardus Silvestris (Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 911): Explanations of divination through palmistry Magdalene College, Cambridge (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Expositio in Apocalypsim (MS Mm.5.31): Angel addressing St John, with measuring rod in Temple Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• The cosmography of Qazwini (MS Nn.3.74): Overview of the 12 celestial spheres Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• The cosmography of Qazwini (MS Nn.3.74): On power of talismans, illustration of a ritual Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• The cosmography of Qazwini (MS Nn.3.74): Illustration of the solar eclipse Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Photographs of instruments and stations (RGO 6/276): Stereoscopic photograph of the micrometrical engine, an instrument used for measuring astronomical photographs. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Photographs of instruments and stations (RGO 6/276): Stereoscopic photograph of a portable equatorial telescope. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Photographs of instruments and stations (RGO 6/276): Photograph of the transit of Venus. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding methods of establishing longitude by Jupiter’s satellites, the planets and fixed stars (RGO 14/37): Letter from Charles Hudson to Dr Thomas Young, with a colour illustration of a nautical instrument for ascertaining longitude. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding methods of establishing longitude by Jupiter’s satellites, the planets and fixed stars (RGO 14/37): Charts of the stars of the northern and southern hemisphere. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding methods and instruments used to establish longitude and the use of chronometers at sea (RGO 14/38): J. Pimlot on an instrument for finding longitude by measuring the distance sailed. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding methods and instruments used to establish longitude and the use of chronometers at sea (RGO 14/38): Paper by Antonio Maria Jaci on finding longitude, with drawings of a clepsydra. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding methods and instruments used to establish longitude and the use of chronometers at sea (RGO 14/38): George Wolffgang Ulric Wedel on an instrument for finding longitude using his ‘true terrestrial system’. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding methods and instruments used to establish longitude and the use of chronometers at sea (RGO 14/38): George Wolffgang Ulric Wedel on an instrument for finding longitude using his ‘true terrestrial system’. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding impracticable schemes for establishing longitude (RGO 14/39): Letter from Arthur Hodge to Captain Thomas Hurd, Enclosing a description and drawing of his ‘dumb compass’. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding impracticable schemes for establishing longitude (RGO 14/40): Letter and drawings sent from David Thomas to the Board of Longitude, outlining his method of remedying the effects on pendulums and springs of the different degrees of gravity and different climates. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding miscellaneous schemes and inventions (RGO 14/44): Proposal by Major General Grant, for finding longitude by determining the ship’s rate of sailing. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence regarding miscellaneous schemes and inventions (RGO 14/44): A celestial map included in a proposal by Major General Grant, for finding longitude by determining the ship’s rate of sailing. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence and papers regarding irrational astronomical theories (RGO 14/53): A colour illustration by G.W.U. Wedel. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Correspondence and papers regarding irrational astronomical theories (RGO 14/53): A colour illustration by G.W.U. Wedel. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Drawing of turret clock escapement (ZAA0881): By John Harrison. National Maritime Museum (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Base of the electrostatic generator (P504) Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Lawrence Bragg’s bubble raft (P825) Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Electro-plating with a hand generator at the Scientific Apparatus Supply Service factory, Supochiao, Chengtu, CTSAF (NRI2/10/1/1/8/1) Needham Research Institute (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Royal Commonwealth Society, Headquarters and branch building lantern slides (RCS/llh): Empire Clock, Entrance Hall. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Richard Henry Yapp Collection (Yapp/3/1): Sand collecting behind psammina - open flexible object. St John’s College, Cambridge (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Richard Henry Yapp Collection (Yapp/3/1): Circle of eroded sand pinnacles, Castlerock. St John’s College, Cambridge (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Richard Henry Yapp Collection (Yapp/3/1): Sense organs plates, Sense 1, Photograph of four daffodil flowers in laboratory. St John’s College, Cambridge (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• De humani corporis fabrica. Epitome (CCF.46.36): Andreas Vesalius’ Epitome, part of a call to establish anatomical knowledge by means of first-hand dissection, following the example of Galen. Reverse of layered paper manikin (made), showing recycled manuscript. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Nuremberg Chronicle (Inc.0.A.7.2[888]): Epitoma operu ser dieru de mundi fabrica Prologus [Prologue: A Summary of the Creation of the World], illustration showing The Universe. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Nuremberg Chronicle (Inc.0.A.7.2[888]): Prima etas mundi [First age of the world], illustration showing the Creation of Eve. Cambridge University Library (CC BY-NC 4.0)