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August 08, 2005
S.W.A.M.P. (Studies of Work Atmospheres and Mass Production)
is an organization whose primary goal is to find creative expression within elements of culture that are inherently counter-creative.
Their projects subvert these elements and make them into something new and much more interesting. For example:
Spore 1.1 is a self-sustaining ecosystem for a rubber tree plant purchased from Home Depot. In this project, Home Depot is responsible for the plant in two ways: first, an unconditional guarantee to replace any plant they sell, for up to one year; secondly through an implied cybernetic contract. This second responsibility is the creative content for the work, where Home Depot's economic health is transitioned through a series of physical computing techniques to a mechanism for controlling the watering of the plant. An onboard computer uses a Wi-Fi connection to access Home Depot stock quotes once per week, keeping a database of these week ending stock values. From the fluctuations in Home Depot stock, various programs and circuitry are controlled accordingly. As the company does well, so does the plant - if the company suffers losses, Spore 1.1 does not get watered. If the plant should parish, due to poor stock performance, it is returned to the Home Depot and replaced with another-at no additional cost.
(Thanks to boingboing for pointing me at this)
Posted by daen at August 8, 2005 06:21 PM