Stella Verde – Smart Garden

By depleting the soil of nutrients, industrial agriculture has an increasingly detrimental impact on the environment, which fails to regenerate at a rate necessary to sustain animal and plant life. Industrial production further affects food quality and interferes with its provision to the point of scarcity and, ultimately, the extinction of individual species. The current situation is a critical challenge for the planet. Neither traditional farming nor industrial agriculture can meet the needs of a growing population, the biotic diversity of a balanced environment and the increasingly growing demand for quality food sources.

The main takeaway from the artistic research into the co-existence of humans, technology and living systems is a critical need for human society to reinvent itself and stop natural resource extractivism. The creative use of various technological sensors in art projects gives us a glimpse of the life-giving potentials of human and non-human beings. Combined with reflections on preserving natural balance, we can develop possible scenarios of non-extractive coexistence. The installation StellaVerde is a micro-situation, a habitat in which plants, with the assistance of moisture sensors, control their watering, growth and harvesting – all executed by a spider robot.

Authors: Gregor Krpič and Simon Gmajner in collaboration with dr. Jan Babič, dr. Marko Jamšek and Gal Sajko (Jožef Stefan Institute)