Puya project, Chagual bonds. 2025

Inspired by research on the Chilean Chagual plant, in danger of extinction due to the constant threat to its ecosystem, a reactive human-digital image piece has been proposed using CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from viewers to activate and generate a drawing-animation produced in the TouchDesigner generative environment platform, which reacts in a linked way to the input of ppm (parts per million) values from a CO2 sensor arranged in the exhibition space within a root.

In the center of the screen we see a 3D model of a Chagual totem [mother totem or new hybrid species] a virtual plant space that has been worked in Blender relating all the factors that would be essential for the preservation of the species: the seed, the plant, the cockroach, the mice, the butterfly, the human being, the pollen, the technological resources, other plant species, etc. using as visual reference the images obtained in the field trips associated with the project. On this background, each time the ppm count obtained through the sensor increases, the values associated with the variant that changes the position, color and speed of a group of butterflies fluttering around the Chagual are modified; the more ppm, the more butterflies in space. The chagual butterfly is the most threatened with the extinction of the plant, since it is a species that only gestate and is born in the Chagual. The idea is to propose an alliance so that a part of our existence helps to preserve the species.