Will Wharton — Spinelicker
Reviewed by Chenoa Baker

In Spinelicker, a plant’s terminal bud grows, hardens, and drops spherical objects down the drain like a crystalized birth with a “thud.” Thistles emerge and remind me of the creation process and nostalgia for the video game Spore (2008) where its described as where a player “develops a species from a microscopic organism to its evolution into a complex creature, its emergence as a social, intelligent being, to its mastery of the planet, and then finally to its ascension into space, where it interacts with alien species across the galaxy. Throughout the game, the player's perspective and species change dramatically.”

Will Wharton, the creator of this generative plant, is a visual artist who worked with several music industry professionals to create ephemeral performance visuals, as well as building his own practice that is process-based, speculative, and surreal design evident in the work. He builds an assemblage of virtual reality sculpting, 3D printing, projection mapping, virtual reality stop motion, digital puppeteering, machine visioned 3D spaces, and animation sequences.