StellaVerde setup at Cukrarna, Ljubljana // Gregor Krpič & Simon Gmajner + dr. Jan Babič, dr. Marko Jamšek, Gal Sajko (Jožef Stefan Institute), Video: Jaganath production
StellaVerde is a vertical garden, in which a functional connection between animals, plants, and robots allows plants and animals (in this case fish) to use robots according to their needs.
Radical Care
The project accumulates three conceptual vectors addressing future food production, with the first one being CARE via PLANT-MACHINE intercognition and interaction, which is tied to a better understanding of plants and animals inhabiting the established circular ecosystem. With the implementation of a comprehensive and constantly upgraded sensory array, consisting of sensors for soil moisture, temperature, light, humidity, gasses in the ecosystem, and individual plants and fish tanks, we are able to provide radical care to the plants growing in radical conditions, according to their specific individual needs. The machine, in this case a five-legged spiderbot and custom developed computer code for its locomotion, and algorithm for plants’ well-being, interprets the data and translates it into a watering rout(in)e for the spiderbot. By navigating it and taking care of them, plants are factually and symbolically emancipated from humans and their productivistic exploitation.
Personalisation of food production
The second conceptual vector is a shift from precision-farming to PRECISION GARDENING with the help of (BIG) DATA processing. When we connect the robotic infrastructure with the assessment of big data that is provided via direct and remote sensing (e.g. sensorics on unmanned aerial vehicles, satellite imagery, internet of things…) the smart garden is meant to personalize and optimize food production in accordance to the personal needs of the owner, and environmental and regional conditions (climate, resources, transportation and logistics capabilities) that the system is detecting. StellaVerde is a prototype and a possible scenario, offering a partial solution to the existing industrial food production, which with its intensive exploitation of the soil, air, and waters, is increasingly damaging the environment. With industrial production, the deterioration of food quality is escalating to the point of scarcity and eventual extinction of species. With smart gardening, we can envision personal food production in urban environments (roofs, walls, balconies, …) as well as outside of the challenging urban situations where aquaponics are tuned to fulfill the needs of small settlement units (a family, condominium, …).
Degrowth
The artistic study of the coexistence of people, technology, and non-human living systems teaches us that humans as a society need to reinvent ourselves and change our productivistic and extractionist approach to natural resources. Through the proposed StellaVerde prototype, which is an ecosystem where plants, animals, and machines are maintaining the balance, we can glimpse a possible ethical scenario for a non-extractionist coexistence, where the human, although his nutritional needs remain as a benchmark, is exempt from the decision-making process and the hybrid plant-animal-machine is the one that regulates the hybrid system and determines where and to what extent the garden can be harvested. Since the idea of degrowth is not the opposite of neoliberal consumeristic over-production calling for less and less, but rather searching for an answer how much is enough?, the nature-culture hybrid system we are proposing with StellaVerde prototype is showing us the possible future scenario to heal our damaged planet.
Process
The StellaVerde project stems from S+T+ARTS residency in Repairing the Present project that took place in the year 2021. In the residency program, the creative force of the Vivarium Lab at Kersnikova Institute Simon Gmajner, and Gregor Krpič collaborated with the Laboratory for Neuro Robotics at Jožef Stefan Institute.
The innovation proposal was to develop the plant-computer-robot interface with a functional vertical garden and a five-legged spiderbot. The five-legged zoomorphic spiderbot was conceived as a symbol of human (pentagram as a symbol of human) symbolically framing the hybrid system as a possible future scenario where the system maintains the ecosystemic balance emancipated from humans. However, a five-leged fobot as a symbol of a human is proving that we do not pretend the humans with its non-antropocentristic approach is not a part of the game.
The demand for a five-legged robot that symbolizes the human proved to be extremely challenging for the robotic engineers to develop, as there is no five-legged kinematic in libraries of existing robotic movement, thus the engineers needed to write a code for the robot from scratch, and redesign the skeleton of the spiderbot, as there were also no existing material deformation calculations to defy the force of gravity that bent legs, joints, and actuators. One of the innovative solutions developed especially for the StellaVerde situation is also the power system that powers the battery-less robot through its legs via pin-holders on the wall making the wall itself a part of the robot. As far as the history of robotics is teaching us about the possible use of five-legged spiderbots there is no spiderbot that is walking on a vertical surface with a distance of his body from the surface to not harm the growth of the plants.
Once the robot was constructed in its final design and commissioned for public exhibition of the konS≡Platform project in the Cukrarna gallery in Ljubljana, the elements made with rapid prototyping were substituted with carbon fiber. The robot improved substantially and was ready to climb a wall by gripping the network of pins through which he also got the electricity necessary to operate.
The next step was the implementation of sensors that were set in each individual plant pot. The sensors are sending the data to on-board computer and are informing the spiderbot which plant needs to be watered.
The water containers below the vertical garden are fish tanks where fish are used to conclude the aquaponic system with the water balanced with the necessary minerals and bacteria for optimal plant nurturing.
StellaVerde timelapse of an entire 30-minute watering circle with water refueling and path mapping: Video: Simon Gmajner
Once the interspecies hybrid system was established, the learning phase for the team of artists, scientists, and engineers began. By observing the plant growth in rather radical conditions and the work that spiderbot has to do in serving the ecosystem, authors intensively learn about the intercognition between an animal-plant-machine system that is teaching us how difficult is to keep a harmonically balanced ecosystem. That is exactly the imperative that this inspirational possible scenario for a more sustainable future is carrying: how we care for others is the core of our future social contract where non-human living beings get the same moral and ethical value as humans.
Credits
Authors: Gregor Krpič & Simon Gmajner
Scientific collaborators: dr. Jan Babič, dr. Marko Jamšek, Gal Sajko (Jožef Stefan Institute, Department of Automatics, Biocybernetics and Robotics – Neuromechanics and Biorobotics Section)
Technical solutions: Uroš Mehle, Marsel Osmanagić, Andraž Tarman, Luka Žagar, Martin Konič, Jure Sajovic
Hands-on assistance: Nastja Ambrožič, Eva Debevc
Producer: Lea Lipnik
Innovation catalyst: Jurij Krpan
Research and development: S+T+ARTS residence Repairing the present 2022
Execution of the robotic setup: konS≡Platform, Challenge Lab 2023