Plantae Agrestis: Distributed, Self-Organizing Cybernetic Plants in a Botanical Conservatory

Conventional digital logic embodied in silicon-based materials has long neglected the capabilities of natural systems. This work seeks to embody a new hybrid form, analogizing chemical signaling to electrical signaling and vice versa. Through an installation at a botanical garden, technological functions in this setting are relegated to plant controls. Several plants are interfaced individually through their own internal signals with robotic extensions and self-organize in a botanical conservatory. The authors observe emergent behavior to consider implications to bioelectronics models, materials, and processes.