The Plant-Machine Project

The Plant-Machine Project

researchers:

Raoul Frese (VU)

Špela Petrič (VU / GRA)

How can a machine think of itself as a plant?

with Hybrid Forms Lab

Keywords: artificial intelligence, machine learning, plant behaviour, embodied cognition, machine sensing, algorithmic governance, vegetariat

The Plant-Machine Project stems from an urgency to discover compelling new ways of caring for Earth’s living creatures in a time when computational abstraction in algorithmic governance is our shared reality. Under the project’s artistic umbrella an interdisciplinary team of scientists, artists, programmers and engineers work towards making a machine that thinks itself a plant. Befitting the ambitious task, the project is further divided into chapters or experiments which function as self-sufficient artworks as well as stepping-stones towards the larger project. The series of works allows us to gradually develop plant sensors, to become acquainted with plant behaviour, tinker with the machine’s embodiment (robotic actuators) and to test various possibilities in machine learning approaches.

Other partners: Zavod Kersnikova, Ljubljana, Slovenia

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Hana Josic