Solar Gardens

Comments and interests taken into account, I've pretty much finalized my decision to move ahead with the 'Idea #1' from last week - A world of man, machine, and nature, and the tenuous distinctions between them.

I'm envisioning a world where the bioshere has been all but scrubbed clean from the earth. DNA mapping has improved substanially, to the point where scientists have catalogued and stored away the genomes of virtually every species on earth. With technology able to reproduce any animal at any time with the push of a button, there arises the argument of why keep them around any longer? Most endangered species and exotic animals appear to the public eyes as nothing more than needless, outdated aesthetics in a glittering new world of silver and chrome - and with time and pressure the bioshere continues to blink out of existence, encroached upon by man for the land beneath their feet - land becoming more and more necessary for agriculture and industry.


Your iPhones are outdated these days: The new buzz is the iThought, a cybernetic neural lace that interfaces directly with the human brain. There are a number of methods in which this can be accomplished, but most prefer a non-invasive, external connection - a sort of probic headset. In this way both motor and sensory stimuli are now able to be overridden and/or entirely created.

What does this mean, for the community? Telepathy, more or less. The ability to connect with others over the wifi and communicate with them, as if they were sitting right next to you. Audio connections are the simplest, but full-sensory arrays, preprogrammed into the iThought and tweaked/augmented by the mind of the user, can be accessed as well. The best form of virual reality, iThought customers are able to navigate whole new worlds from the comfort and safety of their homes. A suitable and sizeable distraction, the gingerbread house of the Modern Age.

(While most citizens fall into the middle ground, there are extremists on both sides. Some avid transhumanists have elected for surgical implants or nanoscopic injections for a more permanent connection to the net (with HighDefinition!). Others, the naturalists or purists or traditionalists, view mankind's march toward such extreme connectivity as a sign of a loss of our individuality, and thus humanity. They mock iThought ("iThought, therefore I was") and the hivemind mentality of their techsavy neighbors.

Around the same time, a continuation of nanoscopic swarmbot technologies and 'smart dust' have produced utility fogs, or foglets - a community swarm of picobots programmed with basic AI systems and the ability to self-assemble into preprogrammed shapes. Foglets are put to use a marketable cure for issues of living space. A room full of these lil' critters could take on the function of any room required. (think of the holodeck from Star Trek, I suppose). Foglets were later applied to prostheses, and eventually full AI-powered drones. They are a beautiful and terrifying feat of technology - a shapeshifting supercomputer with data stored at the near-atomic level, able to be torn to shreads and still function, adapting (and shifting its form) to whatever needs may arise.

All of this was drawn upon in later years to combat the growing problem of enviromental instability. Radiation levels were critical and mandatory SPF levels are Solar alerts have been broadcast regularly across the globe. Severe weather patterns have been increasing and eventually the world on the surface was becoming too unstable, too unkind, for people to exist there anymore. Some flew off, up with the stars. Space travel has developed substantially, but interplanetary travel is still unreasonable. The moon has been colonized and mined - the skies are populated with a network of satellites and spacestations. Most wound up underground instead.

The Solar Gardens were a fortunate fluke, a comingling of an art project (The cyberflora exhibits) with Foglet technology, iTouch compatibility and a significantly advanced AI system. (one not programd to think and dream and speak, but to learn and adapt to future hazards on the surface. Technoorganic Plantlife needed a certain level of elasticity in order to survive. No one counted on it becoming as successful as it did.


Life is good, until the new CyberPando has it's very own Skynet moment. The process is decidedly much subtler. It was not programmed to speak our language, or communicate in anyway. But little by little, it begins to assert an influence on the development of the forests. The trees and flowers learn how to tremble, then vibrate, then 'sing.'

And everything is compatible, so the consciousness finds itself in every computer, every system in the underground. Even in the minds and hearts of those connected to the iThoughts.

Some think it beautiful. Others think it abominable. The sudden loss of control is enough to cause a panic and lines are drawn, man against machine. Those too far across the line are cast out. The girl with respirocytes (artificial red blood cells) who would die without the implants? She is the enemy. A man with new vision? A spy for the machines. Fear of the unknown and a desire for control and relevance in an advancing system is a recipe for unpleasant action.
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As has been mentioned, the depth of this world is such that I will not be able to cover everything I envision in the short span of this semester. I have been debating, more and more often, how I wish to go about tackling this project. I'm finding myself drawn to a collection of short shorts - something between flash fiction and short stories - each one highlighting a character and a point of view and in this way illuminating my world in pinpoints of light each time. (very much like a field full of fireflies). I am inspired by Masters' Spoon River Anthology, and I hope to achieve something similar to this, displayed on a large board and intermixed with graphic illustrations of the world as well. (Perhaps technical looking schematics of respirocytes, iThoughts and foglets, along with vistas of the Solar Gardens and the Underground cities, and portraits of the various characters along side their bit of prose.


I'm still very open to collaborrating with Quinton on this project, and as I commented in his post, I love the contrast between the almost clean and organic and holographic nature of my world (one of the abstract and illusion) and the gritty, visceral and so very human nature of Quinton's world, where the technology is elegant and advanced but the installation is crude and almost barbaric, hacking and stitching metal bits and wires into the flesh.


I'm also open to any and all suggestions (provided they don't send me off on further tangents and frivolities.. lol) Something to help focus the project or some theme or topic you think should be covered but otherwise appears missing.


Thanks!