At OKNO we've been putting a lot of time in TimeInventorsKabinet, an EU-funded two year program. As part of that, the bee's are back after the tragic loss of an entire colony.
We have a couple of beehives, one of which we want to equip with camera's, sensors etc to monitor their behaviour. They're truely magnificent creatures and we hope to find some interesting patterns in the data that we can use for generative audiovisual work. Honey bees have a fascinating dynamic, a typical example of a complex system and it would be fantastic to capture this in a generative piece.
It's challenging to work with living creatures - even more so than buggy technology, they don't follow your timing and while they aren't of an agressive nature, they can be pretty unhappy when you shake down their city.
We've learned quite a bit from last year, both technologically and with regards to beekeeping. We made a nice planning which sensors to put in the hive, when to assemble the pieces.
However they caught us in speed and started swarming - the exodus of a new colony - so we had to put them in the hive we were so carefully preparing.
Finally we decided to build a new hive for next year and just a small prototype to learn some more this year.