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Plant-controlled machete

By Charles Carter, 04/10/22

Innovator artist David Bowen has enabled a living philodendron houseplant to control the movements of a robotic machete through the plant’s electrical signals.

The piece poses the interesting question – if it were possible, should we be arming the natural world so it can protect itself against destruction?

The installation was developed with support of the McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists.

How does it work?

David attached electrodes to the plant’s leaves that measure the varying resistance. These electrodes are normally used to record a human patient’s heartbeat in an electrocardiogram.

A microcontroller – essentially a mini computer – reads the dynamic signals from the electrodes and uses them to control the movement of different joints on an industrial robotic arm.

A machete attachment completes the installation resulting in the now Kung Fu plant swooshing the sword every which way.

Of course, there is no intention on the plant’s part, research has found that the electrical properties of plants vary depending on the physiological processes going on at any one time.

What are the potential benefits?

As with all of David’s work which fuses technology and art, the purpose is to provoke thoughts:

To what extent are plants conscious?

How can we use technology to arm nature so it can protect itself?

Are we at war with the environment right now?

A plant controlling a machete is just awesome.

Questions for you. Comment below

  1. First thought that comes into your head?
  2. Pros and cons according to you?
  3. Other applications of this approach?
  4. What could this be combined with?

Links

https://www.dwbowen.com/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CiPzDn8DuRH/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598578/

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41 responses

  13. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

    Reply

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