Gilberto Esparza builds electronic “beam-bot” like robots that feed off of the environment. The urban parasite is device that crawls along the powerlines sucking on the electricity to fuel it’s movements. His more recent Nomadic Plants, on view at Laboreal Centro De Art
,”moves towards water when its bacteria require nourishment. It contains vegetation and microorganisms living symbiotically inside the body of the machine. The robot draws water from a contaminated river, decomposes its elements, helps to create energy to feed its brain circuits and the surplus is then used to create life, maintaining plants that, at once, fulfill their own life cycle. ” – from the exhibition.

We make money not art posted an interesting brief interview with Gilberto ->
“When i first read about Plantas Nomadas, i immediately thought about Archigram’s Walking City because of the nomadic and self-sufficient qualities of Plantas Nomadas. But what was your actual inspiration? Sci-fi novels and movies? Ongoing research in laboratories exploring the possibilities of microbial fuel cells in robotics?”

“I have been researching and building autonomous robots that can survive in urban space, stealing the energy that the city itself generates. Later on, i found online some publications about research projects using microbial fuel cell. I was immediately inspired to develop a project that would engage with the issue of pollution in rivers. I visited El Salto Jalísco, a community very affected by this problem. I was therefore interested in making it the location of the intervention.
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