\nPLANT CYBORGS\u00a0<\/strong>(2015-d.d.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
In 2015 I started off an artistic collaboration with a houseplant. The plant, an ordinary baby rubber plant (P. obtusifolia) happened to sit on my desk when I asked What is life? Personally I think life is what happens in the connections in-between with other beings. I have connections with people, animals, even a mountain or place. I wondered how much I could grow a connection with this plant.<\/p>\n
I started simply by spending time with the houseplant. We sat together for long periods and I meditated on what we have in common, its characteristics, my impressions of it. I visualized my breath through my lungs and the same air going through the plant\u2019s stomata. This grew a bodily connection. I discovered that we have another commonality in the biosignals going through our bodies. By amplifying the electrical signals via electrodes on my scalp and on the plant\u2019s leaves, we could listen to each other’s vibrations.<\/p>\n
During the experiments on the plant\u2019s electrophysiology, I wondered if the plant could be taught to move a robotic prosthesis. It would help the collaboration tremendously if we could be on the same time scale. After a lot of work with programmers, data scientists and electrical engineers we managed to give the plant a prosthesis that reacted to its bio-signals with the help of machine learning.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a challenge to try to communicate with a being so far from oneself. On the other hand, we communicate with signals all the time both consciously and mechanically. Now we discover that other species also communicate with discrete signals. Can we learn to make the signals of Others, like plants, give resonance in us?<\/p>\n
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Daniel Sl\u00e5ttnes<\/strong> (b. 1986) lives and works in Oslo (NO) and V\u00e4stra \u00c4mtervik (SE). He holds a degree in Master of Fine Arts from the Oslo Academy of the Arts (2014). The graduation project \u201cMeditations over form\u201d is an archive that dealt with strategies for sculpting with subconscious choices. Recent exhibitions include Vegetal Connections at Atelier Nord in Oslo, \u201cAnthro-botanical investigations from the studio\u201d at Gallery Hans in \u00d8rland, Consciousness in the Time of Kairos at Kurant in Troms\u00f8 (in collaboration with Sara R\u00f6nnb\u00e4ck and Hans Edward Hammonds), Conversation Between Bodies (together with Sara R\u00f6nnb\u00e4ck) at the Art Museum of Nord-Tr\u00f8ndelag and Aldea Center for Contemporary Art in Bergen; Seances with Materials at Podium in Oslo and Hotel Pro Forma in Copenhagen and Platform 1-12 in Slovakia. Upcoming exhibitions at RAM Gallery in Oslo, Oppland Art Center, Arteriet in Kristiansand, and \u201cTree Talks\u201d curated by LATERNA in collaboration with Black Box Theater in Oslo.<\/p>\n