Iconeye magazine wrote about Mexican artist Gilberto Esparza’s plant robot, a roving art installation. Called “Nomadic Plants,” the robot is part of an exhibition organized by LABoral Gallery in Asturias, Spain. Iconeye says the project is inspired by ”natural processes whereby plants adapt to hostile environments and colonise new territories.” The nomadic plant is autonomous, and leads an ”unthreatening existence,” living off industrial waste.
Esparza told Iconeye: ”Nowadays robots are a waste of energy: they dance and they move all the time.” To make his plant robot self-sufficient but also productive, he designed it so it runs on bacteria found in waste. “When these microorganisms need nourishment the machine seeks out dirty water, which is then decomposed to create energy; any surplus is used to emit a noise and sustain plants carried on its back. The machine and plants becomes co-dependent.”
Iconeye says Esparza has long explored the relationship between organisms and systems. “In a previous project, Urban Parasites, creatures made from recycled electronic goods infested urban environments, feeding of a city’s electricity and telephone wires.”
The installation is open from March 25 to June 7 at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial.
Read the article and see more images.
Image credit: Gilberto Esparza / Iconeye Magazine
