NPR

Artist's Exhibit Borrows Human Tech To Solve Nature's Manmade Problems

Artist and philosopher Jonathon Keats didn't need to create anything new to show the absurdity of human problem-solving. All he had to do was give human technology to animals.
In an exhibit at the Samek Art Museum, artist Jonathon Keats explores what the world would look like if animals and plants got to use human innovation for their own benefit. Here, flowers use "botanical sex toys" to simulate bee pollination. "What got me thinking was the fact that (artificial pollination) didn't seem like much fun for the plants," Keats says.

Humans have long looked to animals for design inspiration. From basic camouflage to a quiet bullet train in Japan to the Wright brothers' wings, the process called biomimicry is a basic tenet of human engineering.

Jonathon Keats has turned it on its head.

The artist and, at the Samek Art Museum at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, is a thought experiment on the selfish ways we humans innovate.

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