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Interventions

PlantBot & PollinatorBot Workshops use friendly animatronics and recycled materials to create whimsical robot-plant hybrids and interactive public events that support ecological literacy.

 

Workshop Description

Problem: As consumers, we no longer know the real price of our food. Our food distribution systems are so complicated and muddled that it is unrealistic to ask consumers to make responsible choices based on the knowledge at hand. Realizing transparency in food production is necessary, how can we begin a discussion?

Solution: PlantBots & PollinatorBots encourage people to think about their food, where it comes from and where it may be going when we take our remote control robotic plants to the streets. The goal is to get people to question the food they eat and how it reaches their plate in an entertaining and artistic way. Having an out of gallery or museum art experience is unexpected and can be more memorable while attracting a wider audience. Our street tactics bring art and STEM education into a community despite the level of support for art, technology, and food transparency in that location.

 

To further engage the public, we also encourage communities to participate in PlantBot Building Workshops that cumulate in an intervention or PlantBot Invasion. Such events teach participants to hack recycled animatronics and turn them into a PlantBot that could be possibly correspond to the environment specific to the site. Once the PlantBot and its unique story is contextualized, participants don a lab coat and take their sculptures to the streets or community location. The newly created PlantBots are released to create a humorous and interactive PlantBot Invasion that each community member becomes part of to encourage furthur discussion.

 

PlantBot Genetics provides all materials necessary for the workshop including animatronics and foilage. Workshops can transpire in a studio or class situation or be made into a performance or happening.  PlantBots become the property of each workshop participant or there can be an associated exhibition and even donated back to the laboratory. ​Contact Jschmuki(at)gmail.com or wdeschene(at)hotmail.com to arrange a future PlantBot Workshop in your community.





Images on right represent several  various  Plantbot workshops and interventions in partnership with community members.

 





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