Yeah, I was also wondering about this. I take care of fish tanks, and swimming pools, and… plants (both indoor and outdoor, inground and in containers).
There’s a lot of shake-down details here that are not abundantly clear. It’s pretty, and it seems like a good idea prima facie but the maintenance–life support machine or not–is really making a case against it.
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How much light/electrical budget is committed to keeping the phytoplankton alive?
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How much air pollution is generated by the (coal-fired? nuke? hydro? solar?) power plant that (a) is powering the light and life support machine, and (b) is that accounted for in the artist’s argument that his work is purifying the air?
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How much air is being purified by such a pretty thing, per kilowatt hour, vs. something like this:
?
(I am aware that maintenance costs on a living wall are also significant, but in the cost-benefit analysis of indoor air quality ROI, there are winners and losers based on stuff like math and data.) Simplest explainer:
The intersection between Art and Functional Art (in non-aesthetic, measurable-by-engineers-and-scientists terms) is not very big. And super pretty closed-loop functional art, made by humans, is smaller still.
I suppose the biggest functional art object with closed loops I can think of is this one:
- Looking to purify the air? Please, please talk to this guy:
ETA: grammar, punctuation and stuff
