Aesthetics of Biocybernetic Designs: A Systems Approach to Biorobots and Its Implications for the Environment

The authors identify some of the theoretical premises of biocybernetic art objects, with reference to the works of Nam June Paik, Edward Ihnawitz, Ulrike Gabriel, and most notably, Gilberto Esparza, the Mexican biocybernetic artist. Systems theory anticipates stochastic convergences in nature, defying the classic certitude of the teleological notion of form. Evidence for this paradigmatic shift is found in the biocybernetic creatures conceived by these roboticists. In much biocybernetic art, beauty emerges in the form of adaptive mechanisms, such as in robotic tetrapods or self-organizing artificial plants. Such structures provide a template for survival mechanisms in an increasingly entropic environment.