I N S N ( H ) A K (R) E S

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INS(H)NAK(R)ES is an interactive system that uses robotics, sensoring and communication networks. It proposes to share the body of a robot snake put in a serpentarium with other snakes. A web camera is coupled to the robot transmitting in real time scenes of the serpentarium. Its name is Ângela. The remotely controlled snake makes several trajectories in the serpentarium and collaborates with the snakes life by giving them water and feeding them. Remote participants connected through the net send movement orders which are interpreted and then result in trajectories in the serpentarium. The life in the environment is not restricted to only one participant. Presence sensors capture the action of the robot and release amounts of liquid for their basic needs. Life in the environment is a result of the mixture of biologic and technologic signals. The natural world is revitalized through interactive technologies that generate new forms of life.

In INSN(H)NAK(R)ES, in the serpentarium natural environment, the remotely controlled robot performs tasks which human beings might be doing with their body. The site provides a collaborative action through the net using telepresence and telerobotic. The robot is an agent that dwells and acts in the physical world. The telematic network is connected to the environment and allows the collaborative action of people who take part in a collective responsibility for the survival of the natural environment. Connecting the website http://artecno.ucs.br/insnakes allows the snake to be commanded by remote participants in an enhancement of the body in a planetary scale and with decisions that are made in the cyberspace without any physical or geographic boundary. By acting collaboratively each participant contributes to life in the site and to the natural life of the ecological environment. A transdisciplinary team that includes artists, biologists, information technology and automation people is responsible for this work. The human action through the net by means of connections in the site provides the dialogue of natural and artificial systems. The environment uses technology in a pragmatic and esthetic dimension. It allows the appearance of an ecological community concerned with habits and physical attributes of the natural environment of a serpentarium. A planetary collaborative action, in network links, guarantees the snakes' life, since the robot, in its trajectories, supplies them with water and food. In its esthetic dimension, the technology enhances the field of perception, because it proposes other limits for the body through actions in remote space. Living among snakes is put at the level of dream and imagination. The artist always acts in the boundaries of dreams and deliriums, among joys, desires, beliefs, fears that are states of our imagination. Snakes are part of a huge arsenal of terrifying stories and according to the biologist in the project who is responsible for the serpentarium, these frightening ideas about snakes have been keeping people away from the scientific knowledge that could put down the myth about these matters. Being able to live through telepresence with the environment and penetrate natural life thus learning about snakes' habits and behaviors makes INSN(H)AK(R)ES to be very important for environmental education. The site allows the "virtual approach and makes people responsible for certain aspects of the snakes' well-being, such as offering them water and food" and that is what caused the biologists of the Museum of Natural Sciences of the University of Caxias do Sul to participate in the project.