The TeleGarden was a telerobotic

community garden A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...

for the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Starting in the mid-1990s, it allowed users to view, plant and take care of a small garden, using an Adept-1

industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

robotic arm A robotic arm is a type of mechanical arm, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm; the arm may be the sum total of the mechanism or may be part of a more complex robot. The links of such a manipulator are connected by join ...

controlled online.

History

The project began at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

with project directors Ken Goldberg of University of Southern California, and Joseph Santarromana, a

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

artist at the time known for his video installations. They envisioned it as an art installation challenging the notion of the Internet and "consider ngthe 'post-

nomadic A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

' community, where survival favors those who work together." Project members included George A. Bekey, Steven Gentner, Rosemary Morris, Carl Sutter, Jeff Wiegley, and Erich Berger. The Telegarden went online in June 1995. During its first year, it attracted over 9000 members. In September 1996, the Telegarden was moved to the

Ars Electronica Center Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the ...

in Austria where it was originally planned to be on display for one year, though it ended up remaining active until . The Telegarden was a fusion between old technology (agriculture) and new technology (the Internet). The notion of a physical garden that is operated by users online was appealing to Goldberg because "it was the most absurd". This new media art raised questions of legitimacy. How are users to know that the garden actually exists, or that any of their motions matter? Goldberg stressed that, "media technology generally facilities the suspension of disbelief." In its nine years, the installation had 10,000 members, and 100,000 people visited the physical exhibit. Users interactivity created a miniature

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...

. People became protective of plants, even territorial.

References

External links

Telegarden homepage
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190302143637/http://queue.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/garden/Ars/ , date=2019-03-02 from Ken Goldberg
Ken Goldberg's UC Berkeley homepageIntroduction to Telegarden
by Ars Electronic (Linz, Austria)

from "Database of Virtual Art" (virtualart.at)
"Telematic Connections," Curated Piece on the Development of Telepresence
from the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

"A Performance Space without Geographical Boundaries" (1977)
from ecafe.com
Muntadas's "File Room" (1994)
Community gardening Internet art Installation art works Student activities at the University of Southern California Types of garden Internet properties established in 1995 2004 disestablishments

History

References

Further reading

External links