Zuzalu, Onwards
Wow. Zuzalu happened and now I’m back home. Still digesting everything that happened there, while rejoining the same daily activities as before. But will it ever be the same? It’s incredible to consider how much can be catalyzed during a dense space-time event with people open to experiment. So much that it’s difficult to focus on the usual work/activity that must continue throughout such experiences. And that’s how I want to start this labnote. By saying that I’m late on this experiment’s schedule because of how things beautifully unfolded at Zuzalu. I’m working on a larger “Zuzalu reflections” piece of writing that explains what is behind this “delay”, but the more pragmatic aspects are:
According to the schedule, by now I should be running the focus experiment. That is, I should be connected at all times to a “peer-being” via the VHP. Well, that is not the case.
The VHP is not ready yet. Well, it is working and currently vibrating with temperature changes, but I haven’t managed to connect it directly to any bio sensor yet, mainly because of incompatible BLE protocols, as explained in the previous labnote. I’m currently investigating the possibility of it being connected to online biodata (like what’s coming from the e-plant), with the help of a mobile app. The advantage of that is being able to use the bracelet being far from the sensor - like when I go to the city - via data service from my phone carrier.
The good news is that I have found a “peer-being”. The peace lily (Spathiphyllum wallisii) has been sitting with us for a few months now and I have always been amazed by how sensitive it is to environmental changes, both in regards to light exposure and temperature. And it responds fast to these changes, allowing for important visual cues to be compared with the haptic signals I’ll receive in my body. (one very important element derived from sensory substitution experiments). I have also come to the conclusion that the source sensor for the focus experiment will be the one I’ve been using since the beginning of my tinkering with biodata. It is the sensor I understand the best, and that has given me more consistent results in comparison to the other ones I’m using. Attaching it to the Nicla Sense board seems like a good approach to continue monitoring environmental data (temp, hum, press, etc) and transmitting it via both BLE and WIFI. Besides, I suspect that the Nicla board can use the same BLE protocol as the nRF52’s one (the chip behind the VHP), which would make things much easier. I will also use two channels for the biodata reading. That is, two of the same sensors reading simultaneously in different plants of the plant. Below is a prep video for the setup, where I weave plant roots and electronic wires:
New time horizon
So when will the focus experiment begin? My new current target date is the next full moon. June 4th, running for a full moon until July the 3rd. How about the next itens in the timeline? Well, I’ll start by stating that this project is definitely extending the 4-month period I had originally imagined for it. Not only because of three unplanned weeks dedicated to Zuzalu, but also because I totally fell for the planning fallacy when estimating how much time it’d take to develop some of the deliverables. That is, the writing pieces (in the same of a paper and a short-story) and an end-user friendly SymBioWare version. I’m more than ever committed to their delivery, but I also want to make sure they will be in the best shape possible, which will certainly require more time, especially for the beta device.
In practice, all of these things will be developed during the focus experiment - I will be journaling thought it, which will provide a lot of material for writing pieces. And I’m sure I’ll be constantly improving the tech, especially for the data analysis, which will be paramount to any market version. I’m just not feeling comfortable to establish a new data for when these will be ready. I prefer committing to continue posting regularly about their updates.
Beside all of this, one thing is clear: this work is growing like mycelium under-ground and new aspects of it are emerging all of the time, in a way that makes it a real challenge to fit it into any regular project management framework. Just to give an example of what I mean, while at Zuzalu I helped birth one of such hyphae: Sentient, giving voice to the Morača River (soon to be declared the first river-based national park of Montenegro). With the demo we built in a “nature hackathon”, humans are able to chat with the Morača ai chatbot, accessing information from the scientific papers used to feed it. We presented it at the Zuzalu town-hall, for the entire community, and such was the positive reception that we’ve decided to continue working on it (given our individual capacities).
But more than a cool project, Sentient opened up our imagination to what kinds of realities would be possible if a LLM model (like ChatGPT) could be designed to speak in the name of a non-human entity, like a river. This could be done with the help of local communities who inhabit and care for the river, with all of their stories and symbolism around it, and grounded on live sensory data that could help determine the entity’s health and wellbeing. This can be a powerful combination, especially when considering the Rights of Nature movement and natural entities like rivers, and even individual animals or bee hives being granted legal personhood in different parts of the world. Literally, it felt like we’re in the beginning of something grander.
From here, onwards.
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