Machine Growth is a series of AI-driven videos that imagines and images a biological-like life for everyday technologies, by creatively morphing them into, for example, trees, house plants, flowers, fish, or coral. Cassette tapes, phones, cameras, headphones, projectors, typewriters, and other electronic waste are “alive” in as much as they grow and spread, consume and break down, diffuse waste and minerals, shift power and stories into and around the world – literally and metaphorically. This series visually compares and contrasts electronic and biological vitality, asking:

• What will digital media be and do, after us?
• How will our devices weather or grow over time?
• What else might our techno-waste be, and how might we sense and feel this?
• Where might electronics lead our environmental and economic politics?
• Can we plan and act toward new and different futures?

Machine Growth is priced to own at .05 ETH via https://opensea.io/collection/machine-growth. The series is almost complete, with three final pieces still in production. The series presents the potentials of alternate life cycles for what we use and throw out, what it might grow into, and how the Earth may (or may not) claim it.

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Each Machine Growth video has been produced in part using Playform: Creative Art with AI. The first video, Listening Tree, was released as an NFT on Rarible in collaboration with Playform, as part of their curated REMIX exhibition. And along with the pieces we also released a “nathaniel stern filter,” for others to turn their photos and drawings into Stern-like and plant-y images, per below and via this link.