Arboretum Digitalus
Arboretum Digitalus is a speculative design piece challenging techno solutionism through the lens of a fictional company who aims to pay trees for the work they do.
2019
“How can we make a tree live till a thousand?”
Arboretum Digitalus launches “The Device”, a technology which utilizes a block-chain sensor network to calculate the amount of work a tree does and automatically generate an invoice to be paid for by the state. By drawing a small charge from the tree The Device can send out a beacon to say that is has ‘signed into work’. Once the tree has payed off its portion of the national debt it can become sovereign, and a compulsory purchase order is made to buy the piece of land the tree is rooted in. Additional money that the tree makes will be used for ecosystem regeneration, education, and to plant more trees.
Arboretum Digitalus was exhibited in Dutch Design Week 2019 by BioArt Labs.