CAON – control and optimize nature

Imagining a speculative future where technological solutionism has been taken to an extreme, CAON – control and optimize nature, explores the potential of advanced technologies in the management of future ecosystems. In a habitat where animal, fungi, and plant species have been modified by 3D printing, CRISPR, and synthetic biology, the viewer observes an AI preventing the delicate ecosystem from collapsing. Interacting with a smartphone, through the perspective of an AI simulator, the audiences are invited to fly with the created species, optimize them further, and observe the changing ecosystem. CAON responds to the trend of technology-assisted solution-making by constructing narratives of an uncomputable system under extreme control. The project aims to inspect our tendency to simplify complex ecosystems by treating nature as a system that can be fixed.