About Cyborg Botany
Cyborg Botany is a new, convergent view of interaction design in nature. Our primary means of sensing and display interactions in the environment are through our artificial electronics. However, there are a plethora of such capabilities that already exist in nature. Plants, for example, are active signal networks that are self-powered, self-fabricating, and self-regenerating systems at scale. They have the best kind of capabilities that an electronic device could carry. Instead of building completely discrete systems, the new paradigm points toward using the capabilities that exist in plants (and nature at large) and creating hybrids with our digital world.
Elowan, the robot plant hybrid, is one in a series of such of plant-electronic hybrid experiments.
Project Members:
Harpreet Sareen, Pattie Maes
Credits: Elbert Tiao (Graphics/Video), California Academy of Sciences (Leaf travel video clip)