fish, plant, rack - 2004
quasi symbiotic environment for machine, fish and hydroponics
‘fish, plant, rack’ allows the navigational electrical discharges of the virtually blind elephant fish ‘gnathonemus petersi’ to instruct the actions of a robot whose task is to monitor the development of plants in a hydroponic system. Using the AI system ‘DharmAi’ designed by Brian Lee Dae Yung, the robot listens to the audible incoming stream of pulses from the fish and interprets emerging patterns and densities of clicks as parameters for actions. Gradually building up a more and more comprehensive understanding of the hidden language within these signals, the robot is able to go about its tasks in a way that is increasingly dictated by the fish. The robot is also free to express its ‘feelings’ about the conditions of the plants and its relationship with the fish through a series of sound and light signals and motions configured to convey excitement, awe, anxiety and disappointment.
Ultimately the fish is (we believe) unaware that it is indirectly maintaining watch and at times care over the plants – its only feedback being the images relayed to a screen near its tank from the robot’s on-board micro-video camera. The plants are (we believe) unaware that they are being maintained by a fish. The robot, despite its sophisticated intelligence, is a slave to the fish and to the plants and is caught in a one-dimensional arena which allows it to express itself only within prescribed limits.
In a situation that accommodates three different forms of intelligence, what might evolve when each is being shared or exchanged with the others?
Fish, Plant, Rack creates a real circuit with concrete inputs and outputs across multiple lifeworlds; where none of the actors recognise the other but each acts on its own limited input. The circuit flows; fish - electrical impulses - robot - nutrients - plant - video - fish. For the robot, the fish is a signal, a stream of clicks and pulses; for the fish, the plants are a video image. The mediated network that links the individual members of the ecology add up to something more mysterious, a complex that finds a way to function, each individual becomes a part in a new whole. The media that circulates them maintains the form of data or stimulus rather than form or content.
As usual the software hub of the installation is built with max/msp/jitter with the original java version of Brian Lee Yung Rowe's Dharmai AI application running in the background. The robot is a lightweight construction with a polycarbonate body and a low geared DC motor and 4 standard servo motors. An OOPic-R microcontroller mounted on the back received the calls from the AI and sequences out the actions of the device.
Hostprods is once again indebted to Gary Burns for assistance with the electronics involved in this project.
exhibition history
fish, plant, rack was specially commissioned for Organismos:esto es Vida and exhibited at:
'La Casa Encendida', Madrid, July - October 2004
'Espai Cultural de Caja Madrid', Barcelona, November 2004 - January 2005
BIOS4, CAAC, Sevilla, Spain, 2007
Frankenstein's Monster, Mejan Labs, Stockholm, Sweden, 2007
