Throughout the course of this class, my interests have varied from scaling robots down to microscopic sizes to bio-inspired soft robots to rehabilitative wearables. I wanted to combine some of these ideas and put them in the context of artistic expression \u2013 cyborg botany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continuing from class discussions on plants, I remembered Edwin Tinney Brewster\u2019s book titled Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know, particularly a writing that highlighted the delicate balance between life and death in a tree, questioning how much of a tree is alive, which biologically, is close to only 1%. Considering various philosophical distinctions on the subject sent me down a spiral of biological essentialism, process philosophy, and panpsychism. This brought me to my question \u2013 if a plant could grow, reproduce, adapt to its environment, move, and have behavioral characteristics that could convey bio-electrochemical signals would it be considered as alive as a human?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I came across MIT\u2019s plant-robot hybrid that used the plant\u2019s own internal electrical signals to interface with a robotic extension that drove it toward light, and thought it was insanely cool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n