“Mechaflora” is a living alien species in a parallel world. They function with electrical power, have transparent appearance as camouflage. They sense the proximity of human.

The name “Mechaflora” is derived from “mechanism” and “flora”, as the project is an interpretation of the biomimic organical creation with mechanical components. This project focuses on the interpretation of the relationship between non-biased mechanicals and inhuman intelligence. The object is a new species of autonomic artifact, has similar appearance to natural plants, trying to show the liveness of machines. As machines are widely being considered as neutral, un-biased and objective elements in the contemporary environment, by creating a fiction of machine-made creature to challenge how human perceive the world, the project provides an abstract image of the environment beyond human’s imagination. According to Jakob von Uexkull’s discussion [1] on the sensorial differences between ticks and humans, how species perceive the environment is based on the organ. Simple animals have simple environment, complex animals have complex environment. So as to bring out the concept that the world is subjective not universal. In Jennifer Grabrys’s Smart Forest project [2], she discussed the natural computational system within the forest, the way they compute and communicate is different from human-made machines. In this project, the concepts aforementioned are combined. The “alien” object, made from digital and mechanical elements that has similarities with earth plants, evokes the imagination of a new perspective of Earth, so as to switch human senses to the fiction of in-human intelligence, perceiving the world beyond human.

[1] J. von Uexkull, “A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans.” Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

[2] “Smart forests,” Jennifer Gabrys, https://www.jennifergabrys.net/smartforests/ (accessed Dec. 10, 2023).