| autoinducer_Ph-1
(cross cultural chemistry) - 2006
bio-artificial
ecosystem for growing rice
Concept
Autoinducer_Ph-1 (cross cultural chemistry) exploits a traditional
rice cultivation technique from SE Asia where Azolla is grown in
large quantities and used as an organic, nitrogen rich fertilizer
in the rice paddies. In the installation this process is reworked
in an overly complexified, industrial, laboratory style way as a
reflection on western agricultural techniques, our modern relationships
with nature and the networked, machinic nature of ecologies.
Featuring an assemblage of pond-like structures, electronics, laboratory
and hydroponic equipment Autoinducer_Ph-1 probes into and interferes
with the symbiotic relationship between the cyanobacteria Anabaena
and the water fern Azolla. Notions of data and information systems
inherent in the relationships between the organic protagonists of
the installation, and how they may be augmented, are realised by
a synthetic software-based bacteria that interacts with them in
its assumed roles of part time symbiont and part time parasite.
Video projections which display evolution of the GCS graphic environment,
and highly magnified video of Anabaena cultured under a video microscope.
Outcomes of this complex relationship and its proximity to symbiotic
or parasitic characteristics determine the behaviours of the robotic
rice farming system that forms the physical bulk of the installation.
The installation loops biological, electro-robotic and computing
processes together in a literally fertile interaction where the
“primal soup” aspect of the Anabaena and Azolla cultures,
and fragility of the young rice shoots, contrast strikingly with
the computer-generated artificial chemistry molecules of the GCS.
Organic
/ Synthetic relationship
The Generalized Cellular Signaling system, a platform for exploring
emergent behaviour and intelligence using cellular systems, is the
artificial intelligence model powering the synthetic bacteria. A
complete virtual environment exists within GCS where individual
cells act independently and communicate with other cells in either
a neural fashion using relatively fixed connections, or bacterially,
where signals are propagated as molecules through a medium. Digitised
stimuli produced by Anabaena cultures, and which reflect their state
of being, are taken up by the GCS AI system, a virtual environment
featuring bacterial cells that interact with each other and with
input chemicals.
The culture chambers in which the Anabaena is being cultured have
gas sensors connected to their exhaust tubes that provide data that
accurately reflects the life state of the bacteria. This data is
then fed to the GCS system in digital form, manifested as code and
as graphical elements in the GCS system projection. The manner in
which GCS responds to these inputs will determine its own behaviours
and the generation of new code which in turn will dictate the supply
of air, heat and light to the organic cultures. Thus, each side
of the organic / synthetic relationship is reliant on the other
for the production of ‘life-giving’ information.
The more the relationship between the real and synthetic bacterial
colonies takes on a symbiotic nature the more nutrient will be delivered
to the rice. If the relationship veers more towards the parasitic
the rice will be starved of the elements it needs. Autoinducer_Ph-1
therefore examines cross species mutualism as a basis for successful
bioartificial ecologies. As a denizen of an electronic environment,
GCS bacteria signals are converted into signals that control various
actuators and thus the regulated environment in which the bacteria
are being cultured. Through this interface, the synthetic bacteria
are fully integrated into the ecosystem and exert an equal influence
on the system equilibrium.
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