Rocky Gardener
Autonomous Robot Represents" Thing Power"
Project Type
Upenn MLA course
Critical Design
LARP 740
Team
Samuel Ridge
Wentao Zhong
Alan Fan
Tools
Arduino
Rhiono
3D print
Contribution
Ideate
Robot model
Electronics
Instructor
James Billingsley
Patrick Danahy
BACKGROUND
At the age of the Anthropocene, the relationship between humans and their environment is broken: we understand surroundings as human vs non-human things, deepening the binary concept of the “otherness” in the network of things. The hidden power of things withdraws from people’s experiences. They are too subtle to be noticed but as important as humans themselves.
In the Force of Thing written by Jane Bennett:
01 Statement
objects have 'thing- power', the curious ability of inanimate things to animate, to act, to produce effects dramatic and subtle. It is impossible for us to understand it systematically because it’s unsettling experiences that show us how our environment is active and we aren't dominated subjects.
From the vital materialism point of view, human power is itself a kind of thing power, and human is walking, talking material assemblages. All consciousness is the result of material interaction. In other words, consciousness is the physiological response of the objective world in the human brain.
02 Design Challenge
A united understanding of things as the parallel of humans is urgent as the reckoned coming of the Anthropocene Catastrophe.
Computers and robotics as a thing with consciousness, how can humans know its material interaction inside? How might we use design as a way to understand how things work?
CRITICAL DESIGN
01 Concept
The Japanese belief in Shintoism unifies the division between human beings and nature to a certain extent, and the zen garden as a miniature nature is the embodiment of this belief. This concept can be strengthened by creating a self-renewal Zen garden.
02 Electronics
Rocky is a sensitive rock gardener. It exists both as an interpreter and manipulator of its environment. As a sensitive object, Rocky is able to examine and assess their environment, seeking the path of least resistance to its combing of the ground. While hell-bent on combining and not running into things, Rocky is also an introspective object. Its internal glow affects its motion, slightly adjusting its speed based on the brightness of the lights inside it.
Evolved to camouflage with its habitat, it is an uncanny steward of its space. Its outer shell presents an image of ”another” rock but through specific apparatus its internal workings as expressed externally. Perhaps to alter others of its sensitivity or maybe purely as a mechanic. If anything Rocky is a reminder that objects are not limited to their external relationship or symbolisms. It is not just a rock, nor is it a duck.
03 Outcome
