HELIOS
Solar-Tracking Power-Generating Robotic Flower
Helios melds sculptural art with kinetic sustainable energy technology to create a functioning artistic expression of an endangered metallic sun orchid. Mechanisms give Helios a biomimetic, circadian rhythm and allow its large leaves to graciously move to track the sun's energy. The piece will connect communities and activate a civic centre by storing and providing power for personal devices, electric bicycles and electric wheelchairs, and more.
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Project Plans
Helios juxtaposes notions of futurism & prehistoric megaflora, creating a platform to comment on issues of renewable energy and advanced manufacturing. It seeks to break down old binaries and explore new artistic horizons. By blending art and technology, we harness two already powerful agents of social change to create the synergistic potency of a new platform that challenges, catalyses and inspires.
We observe the arguments that divide: nature vs man-made, organic vs abstract, human vs robotic, and real vs virtual.
But within the blurred lines of the non-binary, we find new worlds within worlds and new possibillites for the way in which we can inhabit them. Helios invites us to question these divides and explore these possibilities. If a 'mechanized plant' can absorb sunlight and produce energy, react to users and change its response to the environment, is it still 'unnatural' or another form? Is it "just" art or technology - or something much more? Does it seek to play, provoke, or both?
And does it answer the questions it asks?
Follow our Progress
Helios will be produced in three stages.
Currently in Stage 1: The team is busy finishing the engineering and mechanical design and sourcing the funds to take the project to Stage 2.
85%
Stage 1:
Design, Engineering, and Crowfunding
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Stage 2:
Fabrication and Augmented Reality App Development
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Stage 3:
Testing, Installation, and Public Launch
Naomi Wilde
Sculpture, Welding Fabrication