“ Photosynthesis Robot ” ( Franceschini , 2003 )
Interview / Article by Jonah Brucker - Cohen
As engineering science gains ubiquitousness in our everyday life , a risk exists that we will finally lose touch with how this increase use personal effects our natural environment . With a growing reliance on electrical power and atomic number 14 check used in our daily electronics - entrenched universe , the question persist as to how this technological obsession will change our major planet in the years to come ? Examining this conflict from the inner out is San Francisco - based artist , Amy Franceschini and her ongoing artist - corporate , Futurefarmers . mold to both connect us with our fragile surroundings and lock with the on-going conflict of over - expenditure , befoulment , and sustainability , Franceschini uses applied science as a means to both disseminate this concern as well as baffle questions about how to rescue us from these potential fates . GIZMODO spoke to Franceschini about her approach in creating digital and analogue project that challenge our perceptions of engineering and how a little effort to conserve our resources now can save us all in the future .
Name : Amy Franceschini
Age : 35
Education : BFA : San Francisco State University ,
MFA : Stanford University
Affiliation : Independent Artist
URL(s ):
GIZMODO : Your projection , “ Photosynthesis Robot ” , challenges the fundamental definition of what a robot could or should be . How does this make / theme fit into the large theme of your study ?
AF : This man was made at a time where I was a bit disheartened by “ New Media ” works . Rather than a “ Why the futurity Does n’t Need Us ” automaton take over , I proposed a nature take over – or a agency of working with nature rather than try out to mimic it or exchange it . The larger question this power point to is the perceived breakup between humans and nature . This piece is about that paradox . It fit into a larger thematic in my work in terms of a concern about our role as humans within the greater body of the nature we are part of . Much of my work is about balance . In the font of Photosynthesis Robot , it is dependant on several variables in rescript to propel itself forward . Who will provide water , firing conditions and blank for it to move about and do its business ? In this case chase after SUV ’s capturing CO2 emission . Go [ lilliputian ] robot , go !
“ Homeland Security Blanket ” ( Franceschini , 2002 )
GIZMODO : The “ Homeland Security Blankets ” ( HSB ) project materializes the US regime ’s domesticated threat level meter into a physical target and potential consumer product . Why is this manifestation important to you ?
AF : I made this piece right when America obtrude upon Iraq . I was involve in a lot of protests in San Francisco and a recondite headache that our nation was becoming something I did not want to be any part of . The Homeland Security Blanket speak to the current velum of apathy and sensitive hypnotism America seems to be under . This slice is important to me as a product in terminus of it being a critique of consumer culture . I think today people palpate comfort by real objects . These material objective render a fake sensory faculty of certificate , as does the Homeland Security Act . So the HSB projection suggests this false sensory faculty of security department or thump fun at it .
“ Sundial Watch ” ( Franceschini , 2004 )
GIZMODO : Sundial Watches ” takes the 3,000 year old excogitation into the personal gadgetry humanity . How do you see this crossover inform how we perceive today ’s high tech power train ?
AF : Sundial Watch ( SDW ) again for me was a sort of “ Luddite ” approach to New Media prowess . At the time I made this piece I was comparing the idea of digital devices to one ’s own devices . How do you secern time without a watch that depends on assault and battery and auto-mechanic ? In SDW , one must collaborate with the gismo , in that , you must know where North is in Holy Order for the right time to display itself upon the face of the watch . I guess in terms of informing how we perceive today ’s high technical school gear wheel , I would desire it would serve as an anchor , such that it would make people call up about how dependant on technology ( we have become ) .
“ DIY Algae / Hydrogen Bioreactor ” , ( Franceschini , 2004 )
GIZMODO : Your work presents a critical view of the pressure we visit on the surroundings while at the same time enlist with this conflict . How does this theme fit into the “ DIY Algae / Hydrogen Bioreactor ” project ?
AF : My business organization with engineering is that I am simultaneously excited about instauration , but I wonder the need to reckon so heavy on mellow - technical school solutions . The DIY Algae / Hydrogen Bioreactor is an attempt to put the baron of energy production in the manus of the multitude , such that they are not so qualified on the privatized world of free energy . The summons is still in an embryonic stage , but all the factors that it bet upon to produce hydrogen are abundant ; sun , water system , alga . I see these element as “ modernistic technology ” .
“ Soil Sampling Shoes ” , ( Franceschini , 2005 )
GIZMODO : The “ Soil Sampling Shoes ” project attempts to covertly take soil sampling of Superfund waste sites in Silicon Valley as the wearer simply walk around on the soil . Why did you choose this particular localisation and what were you attempting to discover with this oeuvre ?
AF : I choose Silicon Valley Superfund Sites because it is really the breadbasket of the eminent - technical school manufacture . I live and work very tight to this area and employ the products raise there . In explore these site , I find that there are 29 site in Santa Clara County . This is the most hard area of toxic web site in America . After doing much inquiry I found that many of the companies responsible for contaminating this area were making products that I employ . When I tried to get information about the history and current status of the toxic clean and jerk up , I found that the issue had sort of stop to exist in the public eye . When I get down calling various company to ask about their Superfund status , many of them did not require to discourse this or told me I could find everything I was looking for at the EPA program library .
I made the Soil Sampling shoes as part of a larger labor , “ Gardening Superfund Sites ” . The shoes gather information in the variety of soil information that can be consummate evidence . This dirt present in the form of a carving becomes suspend evidence . The shoe become charged objects in the sentience that the crank vials meet with soil become a representation of the memory of each situation . A record of the waste produced in the fashioning of computer store in the other 1980 ’s .
GIZMODO : What projects are you presently working on ? How are they alike or unlike than your preceding projection ?
AF : I am currently sour on several projects . One is a citywide public presentation with Michael Swaine . It is the secret plan of phone played between 5 telephony booths across the metropolis of San Francisco . The piece runs in line with preceding work , in that it is a morsel “ technostalgia ” and a bit of a critique of the artistic production innovation . Here is a legal brief :
The contemporary idea of an art picture gallery has changed over the years , in part because of the Situationists . The urban center as a stage for public interaction is an crucial way to make modification in society . Telephone Booth will employ a meshwork of five small spaces , rectangular like most galleries , but transparent and part of all cities . Public telephone booths will be used to frame five small performances that revolve around the estimation of communication . Communication is an integral part of being human , and also an integral part of art . The “ TELEPHONE BOOTH ” is promptly being replaced for telephones without rampart . ( Where will superman change into his outfit ? )
The motivation for this project is two fold :
1 . To ply a situation and a metier for artists(citizens ) to collaborate with an unexpected outcome .
2 . To create a platform for audience / creative person participation in the anatomy of an urban playing period where the urban audience and programmed audiences fuse to sire a dialog between these two audiences .
In this game of telephone(booth ) we will bid “ artist ” and “ non - artists ” to have an improvisational dialog . An invite artist will take heed to one side of a conversation and then glide by the dialog on to the next member of the electrical relay race . Five citizen will perform for the city in the pulpit of a telephony booth , and an interview will travel from phone booth to sound kiosk by wheel and see and hear the conversation grow and change . The audience becomes at once a localized and distributed participant guide through the metropolis by a drawing string of conversations . The invite artists let in : Werner Herzog , Shaun O’dell , Elaine Buckholtz , EATS TAPES and David Wilson .
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