PL'AI / Špela Petrič (SI)
PL’AI is the latest in a series of artworks that dwell on the recent transformation in computer science that has shifted from calculation towards adaptive practices of learning from data, and its far reaching effects. In the PLANT MACHINE PROJECT the focus on plants as living agents exposed to the machinic gaze harkens to the use of automation in industrial farming, yet subverts the epistemic framework of science and engineering by making the constructions strive for plant pleasure, representation, and play. The impetus to observe plants and artificial intelligence at play stems from Huizinga’s writing on the ontological implication of play. He sees play as prior to culture and yet not defined by biological necessity, a capacity all creatures possess. In "PL’AI" we explore possibilities of play between cucumber plants and the naïve AI robot moving at their pace.
The robot approaches the plants with 36 individually controlled wires suspended from above, moving at the rate of 1cm/h. The robot senses the cucumbers with a laser scanner and feeds the images through a neural network, which in turn decides how to approach the plants by moving the colored balls. Through time the algorithmic “imagination” of cucumbers is modified via feedback from the cucumber tendrils while gradually transforming the robot-tendrils into a cucumber trellis that supports their growth.
The play between the cucumber and robot leaves morphological traces in the shape of the plants, the steel strings, and the neural network. We encounter the opening up of another temporality, neither that of a plant nor of a machine alone, already mutated by their needs and desires, and by our own implication in the possibility of their joy.
"PL'AI" by Špela Petrič (SI) received an award on Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2021.
Credits: Hanneke Wetzer, Špela Petrič (SI)
PL'AI / Špela Petrič (SI)
PL’AI is the latest in a series of artworks that dwell on the recent transformation in computer science that has shifted from calculation towards adaptive practices of learning from data, and its far reaching effects. In the PLANT MACHINE PROJECT the focus on plants as living agents exposed to the machinic gaze harkens to the use of automation in industrial farming, yet subverts the epistemic framework of science and engineering by making the constructions strive for plant pleasure, representation, and play. The impetus to observe plants and artificial intelligence at play stems from Huizinga’s writing on the ontological implication of play. He sees play as prior to culture and yet not defined by biological necessity, a capacity all creatures possess. In "PL’AI" we explore possibilities of play between cucumber plants and the naïve AI robot moving at their pace.
The robot approaches the plants with 36 individually controlled wires suspended from above, moving at the rate of 1cm/h. The robot senses the cucumbers with a laser scanner and feeds the images through a neural network, which in turn decides how to approach the plants by moving the colored balls. Through time the algorithmic “imagination” of cucumbers is modified via feedback from the cucumber tendrils while gradually transforming the robot-tendrils into a cucumber trellis that supports their growth.
The play between the cucumber and robot leaves morphological traces in the shape of the plants, the steel strings, and the neural network. We encounter the opening up of another temporality, neither that of a plant nor of a machine alone, already mutated by their needs and desires, and by our own implication in the possibility of their joy.
"PL'AI" by Špela Petrič (SI) received an award on Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2021.
Credits: Hanneke Wetzer, Špela Petrič (SI)