Umetnost in tehnologija Biokugla / Art and Technology: BioOrb (Workshop)

Connecting technology to contemporary forms of art is the focus of this workshop: participants will use a variety of DIY principles to produce a self-sustaining greenhouse (the bioorb) while learning about intermedia arts, combining nature and arts, and discovering approaches that artists use to produce intermedia art works.

Like its predecessor, Ward’s bottle, which was discovered in 1829, the bioorb is a plant-growing system through which only energy passes (i.e. light and heat), while matter (water) remains on the inside of the system. In simple terms, the plants in the bioorb do not need to be watered, because the inside of the system creates a water cycle, similar to the one found in Earth’s atmosphere: when the excess water evaporates, it is condensed on the sphere’s inner surface, the drops sliding down to reach the soil and thus water the plants.

The system also produces its own food (nutrients): decayed plant parts release carbon dioxide into its atmosphere, the gas is then absorbed from the air by the plant and used to produce newly growing parts. Photosynthesis allows plants to produce enough oxygen, a prerequisite for life, to survive inside the bioorb.

One of the main advantages of this system is not only its practical value for people who spend a lot of time away from home and cannot water their plants regularly: the bioorb also enables us to grow certain plants, such as mosses, which otherwise rarely survive in artificial (man-created) habitats over longer periods of time.

The workshop is a part of ACE KIBLA’s non-formal educational program, supported by the Ministry of Culture; and a part of the project Risk Change, co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.