Tightening the Loop: From Machine-Nature Communication Towards Symbiosis

This paper presents an artistic collaboration entitled ‘small work for robot and insects’ (2002). The project is an installation composed of a hexapod robot and a group of crickets that are poised for communication. This work applies artificial intelligence-based learning systems to the task of understanding and interpreting information from living systems. From a conceptual standpoint, the work examines the possibility of data sharing and symbiosis between the natural and the technological and raises questions related to how animals may adapt to robotic life and vice versa. It also examines whether sustaining such a bioartificial ecosystem is possible. The paper concludes by illustrating a later project by us which is concerned with similar data sharing issues and postulates what mechanical natural symbiotic work we plan to do in the future.