Damaged leaves symbolically healed by machines.
Phytomechatronics is a speculative framework I developed to envision technological advancements that nourish, rather than extract from, biological systems. For this series of Lifeline artworks, I collected Vermont leaves damaged by the invasive Lymnatria dispar caterpillar. To symbolically heal and restore each leaf, I used machine learning—trained on my team’s original datasets—to reconstruct the missing sections of the damaged leaf margins. (Margins is a botanical term referring to the outer edge of a leaf, which defines its overall shape.)
The infill of each Lifelines leaf was inspired by a study of plant lines that define a plant’s vascular structure and my observations of lines drawn by machines based on their system efficiencies.
Through the precise movement of a robotic drawing system and the fluid
character of archival ink, each work is a conversation between technological precision and organic form.
In limited series of 5, these robotic drawings are $300 each. To purchase contact Jenn at jlk@jennkarson.studio
