European meadows are one of the most endangered natural habitats on earth. Like other ecosystems, meadows are experiencing increased pressure due to the climate change. In this context our artificial “meadow-proxy” employs advanced technological means to subversively convey the reflection on the intersection of nature and technology.
Do we really want to be reliant on technological proxies and simulations of natural phenomena when they become extinct due to the climate change and exploitation of natural habitats? Or maybe nature and technology can go hand in hand and with a shift to green solutions we can avert the destruction and even help nature to thrive – so we’d still be able to hear the wind rustling in the grass – for real…
The installation consist of 440 custom built 2-axis kinetic modules, featuring completely silent electromagnetic actuators and custom PCB of bespoke design – conceived and engineered from scratch by the panGenerator team – as the traditional off-the-shelf solutions like servos would be too noisy, unreliable and hard to control in such quantity. The Leap Motion controller is used to capture various hand gestures interpreted by custom software built in nodejs as forces that act upon virtual grass-field which in turn provides the raw data to control the movement of individual physical grass blades in 2 degrees of freedom. The main construction measures approximately 1.8 x 4.4 x 1 meters and is built mainly with cnc-milled wooden parts generated parametrically in Grasshopper 3D and the individual kinetic modules combine wooden elements with PCB, electronics, custom 3d-printed parts and laser-cut paper blades.
Conceived in 2020, designed & produced in 2021.
The project was presented at EXPO2020 in the Polish Pavilion as a part of Silesian Voivodeship exhibition organised by Xperience Events.
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