PL’AI, an installation, explores the possibility of play between cucumber plants and an AI robot. With this work, Špela Petrič investigates the notion of a play as an ontological condition of all living bodies, including plants. The act of playing —unlike games, which are limited by clear rules or goals- reflects the curiosity of existence and suggests the existence of inner life.

The project meant that the relationship between plants and machines had to be entirely remodelled. So far that relationship has been driven by extractivist interests. In the agricultural industry, for example, AI technologies are used for crop monitoring, maximising yields, reducing water and pesticide usage. Therefore, the artist had to design technologies that would see plants as partners, not as mere resources.
PL’AI questions how we can employ technology to engage with living entities that manifest their complexity and cognitive abilities in radically different forms. The work also brings together plant intelligence and machine intelligence, two forms of intelligence that we struggle to fully comprehend and that force us to reconsider our overarching conception of life.