Behold a plant equipped with a machete
The artist attached electrical sensors to the plant, and its electrical activity triggers unpredictable swings of a glisteningly sharp weapon
Link to the original video here: https://www.dwbowen.com/plant-machete
Thoughts from me in this blog post (item #4): https://clivethompson.medium.com/contranyms-song-sharks-and-a-plant-that-swings-a-machete-cf510c89b059
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Plant fight!
I can't figure out who I'd bet on but holy moses do I want to see that fight
it's pretty wild, eh?
I want to *form* one now
@clive gah, this is reminding me that I need to water my plants 😬
I had a very strong reaction to this and it's been fascinating to try to work out why; I find the machete a strange projection of a very human approach to "defense" - the use of a weapon. Defenses in nature that plants employ, as you described in your post, are more of a symbiotic relationship with the environment around them; this feels like an escalated version of that in an incredibly disappointingly anthropomorphized way; the moral objection I have is to the fact that humans default to using weapons (exclusive to humans, created by us and used only by us) for our form of survival, instead of a more natural symbiotic relationship with the world around us.
But wow, what a thought experiment.
Yes, this is a really good point! The gut-punch of this artwork is the anachronism of a barbarically human weapon linked to the activity of a plant
(It just occurred to me now that the machete's use as a lethal intra-human weapon is a second-order use; it was originally designed for use with ... hacking through *plants*. So, an additional layer in the art here)
It only occurred to me just as I was writing that reply!
I know 😅
Bonus points if they connected the system to a big solar array that powers it
So you have to wait for the sun to go down for the plant to go to sleep
then in the morning WATCH OUT
Hey, question -- given your wonderful cigar-box guitar icon, do you make/play them?
I made one like 10 years ago, it is a *blast* to play
Right on!
Love those baritone ukuleles, too -- I picked up an inexpensive one in northern Ontario this summer and play it all the time now
Well, to be fair, it's a work of art, so part of the point is that it's a bad idea lol
Whoa! Whoa! Dude!
What makes you think the Plantae don’t have 538.5 million years of pent-up resentment about being eaten?
And you gave a plant control of a machete?
This is NOT going to end well.
Totally
Plants are sick of our shit
If we arm them it is OVER for us
Angry shrubs, roaming the streets
Clive Thompson
Josh Sternberg
Masa 🙇🏻♂️
BStylin
Ernie Smith
Man Bartlett
niplav
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TJtreehugger2 for Harris
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