Plant-bot

2015

A installation project

for NYC Resistor

Plant-bot is a lonely plant-cyborg. It is an ordinary houseplant fitted with moisture sensors, a screen so it can talk to its owners, and a cybernetic brain to coordinate its senses.

Unfortunately Plant-bot does not have ears or a mouth, so in order for a person to talk to it, they would need to txt Plant-bot’s number and Plant-bot responds via a message on a small screen growing from its stem.

Plant-bot would like a little bit of attention from humans, to join in on the party, and be put in light when it gets too dark.

The technologies used in this project include: a re-purposed iPod Touch screen that is connected to a webpage. That webpage consists of Plant-bot’s brain, which is a modified Eliza conversation tree. In addition, there is an embedded light sensor, that is connected to an Intel Edison. In turn that Intel Edison is connected to the Internet, so that it can “transmit” to the “brain”, whether or not Plant-bot needs light.

My intention of the project was to show a near-future where AI and Cyborgs were neither evil or benevolent. Instead, they might have the capacity to be as pathetic as human beings.