Autoinducer_Ph-1 (cross-cultural chemistry) is an installation that exploits traditional South-East Asian rice cultivation techniques in the context of the machine nature of ecologies. Featuring an assemblage of pond-like structures, electronics, laboratory and hydrophonic equipment, Autoinducer_Ph-1 probes into and interferes with the symbiotic relationship between the cyanobacteria Anabaena and the water fern Azolla.

Data and information systems inherent in the relationships between the organic protagonists of the installation are exposed and connected to a synthetic software-based bacteria that interacts with them in its assumed roles of part-time symbiont and part-time parasite. Outcomes of this complex relationship and its proximity to symbiotic or parasitic characteristics determine the behaviors of a robotic rice-farming system that forms the physical bulk of the installation. The installation loops biological, electro-robotic and computing processes together in a literally fertile interaction where the “primal soup” aspect of the Anabaena and Azolla cultures and the fragility of the young rice shoots contrast strikingly with the computer-generated artificial chemistry molecules of the GCS (Generalized Cellular Signaling System).

Commissioned by AV06; additional support from the Arts Council of England