The Monsantra Project is named for the Monsanto Corporation, the world’s largest producer of genetically modified (GMO) seed. Like a traditional B-movie monster, Monsantra is a unexpected hybrid of imagination, possibility and reality. Using GMO seed obtained from Monsanto, artists Wendy DesChene & Jeff Schmuki have grafted genetically modified food plants onto remote controlled robotic bases, constructing artificial organisms with no clear heritage or future. Primarily these poetic plant/robot hybrids beg the questions: what long-term effects will genetically modified food have on those who consume it - and on the land it’s grown on?

 

This May, The New Gallery main space in Art Central will be transformed into a PlantBot laboratory. Combining off-grid solar power and a recycled water system, the lab will serve as a controlled incubator for the Monsantra robotic plant hybrids and accompanying scientific explorations to advance independent research and public education. Gallery visitors will be invited to tend to the Plantbots, by driving, feeding, and watering them. Additional opportunities allow each participant to work in the laboratory on their own experimental models based on information provided in the exhibition. Experimental explorations in the lab could include Smart Plantbots, automated to seek water and light; studies in RoboSpore migration, herbaceous grafting or horticultural propagation with mechanical fusion; and off-site Internet enabled Plantbot farming.

 

As GMO spores, like all plant pollen, do not obey international boundary lines problems arising from the proliferation of this technology quickly become international in scope. Past video and photographic documentation has captured the migration of Monsantra Spores to Korea, France and Italy. This documentation is combined with current scientific research material about the uncontrolled release and global spread of Genetically Modified Organisms while also presenting some of the viable alternatives to be found in sustainable agricultural practice. Supporting these videos, photos, live kinetic sculptures and lab experiments, are botanical drawings of imaginative plant possibilities in the style of Audubon and popular science fiction.    

 

http://www.monsantra.com