Photosynthesis Robot, by Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine of Futurefarmers, is a possible perpetual motion machine driven by phototropism - the movement of plants towards the direction of the sun. The motion of the plants upon this four wheeled vehicle would propel slowly over a period of time.
I've been working with a group of artists on an idea not too distant from this, with one great difference: our project is not conceptual (sorry, can't reveal details for now). If it comes to life, it will be a highly complicated and high-tech work, nothing even similar to what I've been doing so far. And it costs. A lot. We're now fighting for funding. The question is: is it really worth creating "real things", if a "dummy" does the job? I mean, isn't that just the cutest thing in the world? Do we need to need more? Or maybe "doing the job" is actually hiding the possible diversity of such "jobs"... I just wish we came up with this simple witty idea instead of moving into heavy artillery.
Thanks Ivan Franco at YDreams for the link, and to we-make-money-not-art for the discovery.
