Extraordinary beings

2023: AI, Blender, 3D PLA Filament Printing, Acrylic Paint, Varnish and Wire.

Plants are extraordinary. As well as supplying us with oxygen, they are masters of seduction, with the ability to make decisions, learn, remember, and manipulate other species to aid in movement and reproduction. Recent scientific studies have even shown that plants are aware – but not in the way we understand awareness.

But humans tend not to notice plants or be aware of their importance to human survival. This common phenomenon is known as plant blindness.

For this project, I wanted to draw attention to the ineffable, sassy nature of plants. It turns out AI can do this surprisingly well. But the thing about AI-generated images is they reside in the digital world, devoid of materiality, and forever trapped within the confines of a screen.

To bring these other-worldly digital images into our physical world, I utilised 3D modelling software, 3D printing and paint.

Each of these seven sculptures is an embodiment of a 2D AI-generated image that has crossed the boundary between the idealised, illusionary digital world and the real, dynamic physical world.

This project ended up being about drawing attention to the materiality of an object, and the physical space it resides in. It’s about reconnecting with our innate childhood curiosity and embracing playfulness to question what we know.

These sculptures aim to explore the interplay between 2D and 3D, reality and fantasy, natural and artificial, and contrast the constraints of a screen with the freedom of physical space.

What I learned from AI was to really look at plants, rather than just seeing what I expected them to look like. I found AI to be a fantastic tool to escape linear thinking, logic, the laws of reality and the rules of society. But what AI can’t do is exist in our natural, physical world.

And so, I will leave you with this thought ...

To protect plants, we need to care about them. To care about them, we need to notice them. To notice them, perhaps we need to unlearn what we know about them and see them with the fresh eyes of an inquisitive child – or a computer program that’s never even experienced a plant IRL.

This is where art and technology can work together as a mediator to bring our awareness to what we don’t easily perceive, and draw attention to what often goes unnoticed.