Biography
PlantBot Genetics: Wendy Deschene (Canada) and Jeff Schmuki (USA) embraces a humorous yet serious approach to creating public discussion on the genetic modification of our food supply.
PlantBot Genetics and the Monsantra Series
PlantBot Genetics Inc. is the revolutionary producer of genetically modified robotic seed. Monsantra series PlantBots are robotic crop hybrids of imagination, possibility, and reality. We can only guess what will happen to the food supply with subsequent generations of GMO’s and other modifications? In answer to this PlantBot Genetics grafts plants onto remote controlled robotic bases to become organisms with no clear heritage and no clear future. This poetic plant/robot hybrid begs the question what will it all become?
Monsantra Series PlantBots were named after the Monsanto Corporation, the worlds largest supplier and producer of genetically modified seed. Posing as farmers at a Monsanto Field Research Laboratory, PlantBot Genetics acquired transgenic seeds and grafted the subsequent genetically modified organisms (GMOs) onto robotic bases to create innovative agricultural hybrids. Like a B-movie Godzilla, Monsantra attacks food politics when unleashed by remote control onto unsuspecting audiences. These robo-plant street interventions motivate communities to question industrial food production, where food comes from and where it may be going, despite their economic level, education, or interest in art. Coupling scientific knowledge on the environmental and social costs of bioengineered crops with alternative energy technology, Monsantra provokes investigations into current agricultural practices inspiring individuals to think more critically about their connection to what they eat and the natural world.
