Welcome. In this collaborative project, 8 people from different walks of life work together to build a public conversation about their individual aspirations for a desirable future.
Rolling orchards stretched beyond us as we wandered through the edible gardens of Acres Green. Spots of colour peppered the greenery and branches hung low with the weight of ripening produce.
As we looked closer we saw that each tree was actually growing different varieties of fruit. What we originally understood as a tangle of different trunks was actually an intricate technological graft. On parting the leaves we found strange flesh-like prosthesis that seemed to bind limbs from different species together. We realised that to maximise harvests the communities of Acres Green were experimenting with augmented orchards and designing strange new natures.
A prototype showing some of the extreme grafting techniques used in Acres Green to grow different fruits on one tree.
We walked over to pick fruit with a group of locals. It was ‘Harvest Wednesday’ and everyone was out in the orange light gathering their food for the week.
Posters advertising local food-related services found in different neighbourhoods. Locals using feral fruits to make juice and cider.
Under a pregnant tree the apple presses of Murgatroyd Cider creaked and groaned, as they spat cloudy juice into waiting buckets.
The Murgatroyd family started one of the many local businesses around food: A pan-city feral cider business.
Within such extraordinary edible gardens and food orchards, we could not help but wonder what kept this ecosystem so fertile, considering that the so many of our pollinators, including the honey bees, had nearly all disappeared. Then, gazing out across the fields of flowers in the distance we saw tiny glowing creates swarming from plant to plant. We moved on to investigate….
Continuing our journey in Acres Green, from the post above…
The hypnotic dance patterns of small, glowing insects against the warm colours of the dark sky left us in awe, and we wanted to know more. We stopped two people dressed in large netted clothing walking down the street. They introduced themselves as ‘hivers’ and told us the story behind these mysterious creatures:
These glowing creatures were the Beamer Bees or Beamer Signum Apis Melifera, formulated by a community of biologists and hired bio-hackers to service under-pollinated trees, plants and vegetables due to the disappearance of honey bees.
Evolution of the Beamer Bees:
The Beamer Bees are guided by radiowaves to crops requiring pollination. They are produced in a limited number each year, and their interactions with the bumble bees and other creatures are tightly monitored. Here’s a video we were shown, about the making of the Beamer Bees and their interactions with our electromagnetic landscape.
It seems that the Acres Green residents can buy licenses to call the bees. License holders use the bugles or other personal mobile devices which transmits radiowaves that the bees can detect. The bees follow the waves to their source.
We realised how the Beamer Bees had became central to the Acres Green ecosystem and people seemed to be able to live in harmony with them. The photographs below show us a glimpse of one family’s everyday interactions with the new creatures.
Left: Practical, yet stylish netted fashion ensured comfort on the way to a party.
Right: Gardeners who missed out on licenses opportunistically used wifi routers to attract bees to their plants.
Left: Discovering new cross-pollinated flowers became a new hobby.
Right: The daughter was allowed to keep a glowing bee as a bedside pet.
The Beamer honey syrup, with its unique medicinal qualities is prescribed by GPs for allergies.
Within such extraordinary creatures, we wondered what other delights had made their home here. We went further to investigate…
[*Beamer Bees Project Update (March 2010): With a focus on this new kind of 'communication' between humans and animals/insects, we are developing the Beamer Bees project furtheranddesigning more elaborate, poetic visualisations of the interactions between people and these new creatures. We are also looking into the best possible way of illustrating the beautiful swarm-like patterns of the bees' movements, and how they might be controlled by our device.
Regarding the Colony Collapse Disorder, Anab meet bee health expert Dr. Dave Chandler last week, who will be advising us further.]
[Background context for the design of the Beamer Bees: The mysterious disappearance of bees have remained a source of concern for a long time now. Experts have tried to pin down several reasons which include exposure to genetically modified crops, pesticide poisoning, invasive parasites, malnutrition from pollinating vast tracts of crops with little nourishment, and the stress of being moved long distances. Some even suggest that the growing electromagnetic radiation could be a reason that should not be overlooked, as they radiowaves ‘confuse’ the bees’ radar and they don’t return back to their hives. Besides the honey bees, many other pollinating creatures including the native bees, butterflies, other insects, bats, and hummingbirds are in grave danger too.
During our discussions, it became apparent that we were interested to find ways of saving the bees, but our responses could be varied - from direct impact to more critical. This particular idea for the creation of Beamer Bees is critical, and a technique to further the debate, imagine new possibilities around emerging technologies, and also visualise sensual, emotional interactions.]
A visit to the high street was no less intriguing for us. More amused were we by the immense object standing before us than the otherwise normal offerings of paracetemol and coloured pantyhose. Occupying the full width of the road and towering some three - maybe four - storeys above our heads was what seemed like a floral-clad mountain. Tall, yes. Massive in its proportions, certainly. But it invited us in with a gaping cave-like entrance at its base.
The mountain serves as a cool oasis in an urban heat island in summer, becoming a temporary vertical marketplace.
As we moved closer we realized that it seemed to be ingeniously constructed of long plank-like blocks that appeared semi-translucent where its raw surface was exposed under the foliage. It was warm to the touch even in the cool of that autumn evening. Peering closer to the blocks, we could see a faint yellowish glow from within.
A local person later explained that the mountain was made from transparent blocks, which were filled with a wax-like material harvested from the beamer bees! The wax enabled a more efficient means of storing heat by capturing temperature change when the wax turns to liquid. The blocks were easy enough to assemble and fill by locals and as a result every springtime, the Acres Green residents gather to build the edifice several terraces higher than the year before.
Aerial view of the living mountains in Acres Green
It seemed this mountain had a life for every season - a plant-growing structure in summer, a school for adults in autumn, a venue for clandestine meetings in winter, and a community building project in spring. The mountain got wheeled around Acres Green to suit the different needs of the community - the mountain in transit being somewhat of a spectacle in itself.
And other mountains of slightly different specification were deployed all over Acres Green for moss-harvesting, bird-watching, saunas, therapy rooms, and meeting points for creative exchanges.
In autumn its warm interiors host the new school term, and it becomes a space for exchange of ideas without hierarchy.
As we snuggled comfortably in the warm interiors of the mountain, we heard shouts of glee from the children who were playing outside, and our curiosity got the better of us. We stepped out to see that the skies above Acres Green are dotted with small cloud-like floating bodies that were gently flocking close to each other in beautiful patterns. We were told that these flocking clouds were controlled by embedded robotics and would fly freely in the space, but on closer encounters, tessellate to bring rain to drying areas.
The large surface area of each cloud was used to condense water particles, just like fog catchers, and then the particles would run down and be stored in the clouds’ undercarriage. When they came together in tessellations this water would be released to form rain. While the locals enjoyed watching the clouds, and were happy to sustain their desired ecoystem, many unintended consequences of these new machines had also begun to surface…
Left: While planters and gardeners were able to order clouds over a dry patch, Right: Some others also ordered them to cool off at a garden party.
Left: A single glowing cloud often provided company on a late night walk home. Right: But bored kids hacked the network and managed to turn the rain filled clouds onto passers by.
This is the last post on the final outcomes of the project. Posts below take you through our process and how we got here.
In autumn its warm interiors host the new school term, and it becomes a space for exchange of ideas without hierarchy. 
