Robo-Ant Project
The idea is to have a living thing cooperate with a machine. I chose ants because of the natural cooperative behavior that they manifest within a colony. Also, ants are relatively easy to maintain in an artificial environment as long as they are provided with some kind of nest and food supply. If I can manage to extract energy from their daily routine and effectively use it to power a robotized sculpture I should be able to dynamically provide food to the ants so that they don't starve to death. In such a system, I would have a cooperative plan in which ants and machine sustain each other for as long as the colony is alive.
The interesting thing about such a system is that if we add intelligence to the "robo-sculpture" we can have new classes of behavior emerge, such as its ability to interact with humans, its ability to interact with its environment on a different scale than ants alone could, and the ability to have several colonies of "robo-ants" interact and cooperate with each other, an idea that is normally unheard of in nature. Ants are known for their extreme aggressive and warlike behavior when it comes to territory and food supply.
It is important that such a relationship between machine and life be kind and thoughtful. It has to benefit both entities without harming the other in any way. I believe that this type of relationship gives a glimpse of what the future will hold for us and our natural environment as the advance in science and technology slowly converge with the laws of nature for the benefit - or the desolation - of all.
Some of this text was published in number 10, automne 96: "zoo zapping/animals".
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