© The Space Garden Project, 2007-2009.
A 3D Bioreactor (Klinostat - RPM Random Positioning Machine), a device for simulating microgravity and studying the sensitivity of plants to the impact of gravity (geotropism).
The RPM based on the principle of "gravity-vector-averaging". During the experiment run in the two axis RPM the sample's position with regard to the Earth's gravity vector direction is constantly changing. The sample may experience tis as a "zero-gravity environment.
© Space Garden
As a logical consequence, the project of a Space Garden is thus a possibility here, a transparent polymer bubble, with a diameter of several metres and filled with air, ‘poured’ into outer space and, thanks to planetary rotation, having artificially created gravity. In such an isolated biosphere, plants grow and organisms, flooded by the sun, create a garden.
I am already simulating each physical parameter of the project – on earth – in a 3-D Klinostat. This Random Positioning Machine constitutes a scientific tool which researches the effect of gravitation on plant growth. Owing to rotation the tool creates a condition of weightlessness at its centre in the three-dimensional sphere, fixed in the metal frames of the Klinostat, as a Breeding Space. Depending on the speed of rotation, the tool can function either as a centrifuge or a bioreactor. It will become a model of a Space Garden.
Since the biological membrane is a universal principle and forms the basis of each living system in the cosmos, it is conceivable in a great variety of consistencies and sizes, as a soft, gel-like or fluid object, the size of a pill, a fruit, a house or a biosphere. As a bioreactor, incubator or artificial placenta, it would become the new cradle of life and could in the future allow us to cultivate food, tools and shelters. It could even support us in settling the cosmos – it is a life form, thus, with a biological future.
Text from:
Zbigniew Oksiuta, Biological Habitat: Developing Living Spaces, catalogue "sk-interfaces FACT, Liverpool.
Video:
Installation Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, 2007