vegancipation

'vegancipation' is an experiment that tries to give plants a choice on how to live their life through mechanical reproduction and targeted killing of one of their own.

'vegancipation' also wants to see, if this decision is passed down through the generations. Do these plants have faith in the following generations?

The experiment explores the herbal willpower with regard to human motives and ambitions.

It's progressive Lamarckism and analog apoptosis. It's the emancipation of the plant.

Concept

Plants don't really think about reproduction. They just disperse their seeds and a new generation sprouts.

Humans however know and decide mostly every little detail concerning their reproduction and eventual death.

The question is therefore, how can we get a plant to willfully decide to reproduce or not? And what would it opt for if its life was on the line?

first model

Level I

A young plant is given the choice to reproduce through mechanical means. Through growing it can trigger a mechanism that plants a new seed.

Level II

In turn the new seedling can, enabled through its own growth, trigger a second mechanism that kills the first plant(salt, fire, darkness etc). It also has the choice to plant a next generation.

Implementation

First Steps

Level I, sideshot
Level I, topshot
Level II, sideshot
Level II, topshot

evolution

Timelapse

Plant research

Storyboards

final version

Mechanism

simple mechanisms

Technical

Lights for optimal plant growth were separated in a 2x 12 hour rhythm. First 12 hours was steady light. Another 12 hours the light only turned on once in every 5 minutes - right in the moment a photo was taken. So the plant got a period of nearly complete darkness to retire from growing.

Implemented with Arduino, Processing, a radio switch, a radio transmitter and ControlMyNikon.

Processing Code: <quote> import processing.serial.*; int colour = 0; boolean sign = false; Serial port;

void setup(){ //println(Serial.list()); String portName = Serial.list()[0]; port = new Serial(this, portName, 57600); }

void draw() {

 fill(colour);
 rect(25,25,50,50);

}

 /*if (hour() < 12) {  
   port.write('H');
   delay(3000);
   port.write('L');  
   delay(297000);
 }
 if (hour() >= 12) {
   port.write('H');
   delay(1000);
 }*/

//CONTROL BY MOUSE

void mousePressed() { colour = 200; port.write('H');

}

void mouseReleased() { colour = 70; port.write('L');

} </quote>

Adruino Code: <quote>

include <RCSwitch.h>

int incomingByte; //int ledPin = 13; RCSwitch mySwitch = RCSwitch();

void setup() {

 Serial.begin(57600);
 mySwitch.enableTransmit(10);

}

void loop() {

 if (Serial.available() > 0) 
 {
   incomingByte = Serial.read();
   if (incomingByte == 'H')
   {
     Serial.println("on");
     //digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
     mySwitch.switchOn("01110", 2);
   }
   if (incomingByte == 'L')
   {
     //digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
     Serial.println("off");
     mySwitch.switchOff("01110", 2);
   }
 }

} </quote>

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung durch einen guten Freund.