Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, 2005 - Floribots

Essay from Catalogue of the National Sculpture Exhibition: - The National Gallery of Australia

Flowers are organs of plant procreation - they attract insects to act as vectors for fertilisation. But flowers also appeal to humans. To us, a flower’s beauty is defining of all that is pure and joyful in the world. The majesty of the annual – the flower that blooms with all its vitality for one short moment before withering away – plays out the tragedy of life in a single act: ‘we grow, we are beautiful, we die’. The solitary flower domesticated in a pot is emblematic of suburban iconography. Flowerpots are living garden objects that we have brought closer to us, onto the patio, where we can tend them carefully and enjoy their presence at close quarters.

The squared-off flowers of Floribots are well removed from the organic domain. They are mechanoids. However, in a way they too can play out the drama of life and death – bloom and wither – and they can show us other things as well...

Floribots consists of 128 computer-controlled robot origami flowers arranged in an eight-by-sixteen grid spread over thirty-five square metres of floor space. Each robot flower is able to extend telescopically from a rest condition to grow one metre vertically, then suddenly invert its origami ‘flower’ into an open bloom state. The unit can also re-contract back down into its latent state and refold its origami bloom back into the bud condition.

Floribots acts as an interactive collective organism with ‘hive mind’ characteristics. It is capable of sensing audience movement and of adapting its behaviours accordingly. It is a ‘field of flowers’ that dances in unison, with choreography provided by its embedded microcontroller. The flower matrix can exhibit complex wave propagation behaviours as well as describing responsive surface features and entering periods of chaotic motion. The Floribot mind is able to control transitions between these states and can ‘learn’ as it runs over time by acclimatising itself to an installation site and developing a particular set of behaviour preferences.

Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, 2005 - Floribots

Explanatory Plaque at the National Sculpture Exhibition: - The National Gallery of Australia

Floribots is an interactive collective organism consisting of 128 robot flowerpots equipped with telescopic stems and origami flowers. Each individual flower starts as a green bud - which can then grow to its full height and suddenly bloom pink and yellow. Soon afterwards, the bloom will wither back to its flowerpot and return to a bud state.

The behaviour of the overall Floribot matrix is influenced by the ‘mood’ of its hive mind. This mind runs on an embedded microcontroller located in one of the flowerpots. The Floribot mind can sense audience movement via eight infra-red motion detectors that are positioned in special “lookout flowers” - two of which are positioned along each outward face of the Floribot matrix.

Floribot moods include the following:

Reactive: when a motion stimulus is detected, the Floribot matrix dances a wave sequence – the nature of which depends on the position of the stimulus. Repeated stimuli at the same locus tend to produce diminishing amplitude wave reactions - as the mind becomes increasingly accustomed to a stimulus in that location.

Excited: when the overall level of repeated stimulation reaches a threshold the system performs a special ‘Excited’ semi-chaotic dance sequence.

Bored: when the overall level of stimulation drops below a threshold - because there have been few audience interactions for a period - Floribots becomes ‘bored’ and performs a particular dance to attract audience attention.

Naughty: when Florobots has been Bored for a period, and has not been able to attract audience attention in order to re-commence interaction, it enters a transitional ‘Naughty’ state and performs a characteristic movement sequence.

Asleep: once Floribots has passed through the Naughty state, it eventually ‘Falls Asleep’, unless audience interaction recommences. When Asleep, Floribots sets its flowers to a pre-determined sleeping position, and goes into low power consumption mode. After a short time of complete rest, Floribots will again become sensitive to movement, which if detected will cause it to wake up instantly.

Wake Up: When awoken by movement or being turned on for the first time, Floribots will perform a special ‘stretching’ wake up sequence before entering Reactive mode.

Blip: While waiting for a stimulus, Floribots occasionally performs a quick single movement, just to let us know that it is ‘still awake’.

Combinations of these moods and transitions between them create Floribots overall behaviour pattern. Sometimes mood behaviours can partially overlay each other and give rise to ‘emergent’ patterns and expressions.