The Epoch of Encroachment is an attempt to convey a future scenario where nature will respond as a sentient entity by making the conscious decision to utilize aspects of human technology to both thrive in and protect itself from the environment we have thrust upon it. Evidence of the manipulation of technology by nature already exists in experiments conducted by the Russian scientist Vladimir Karamanov, director of the Laboratory of Biocybernetics of the Institute of Agrophysics. These experiments produced results showing that plants could auto-regulate their environment and establish optimal conditions for their growth by manipulating, through movement, a series of electronic switches designed to control levels of light and the amount of water being dispensed to each plant.

Using these concepts as a point of reference, Shaeffer started to form the notion of how this work would begin to visually manifest. The resulting objects were achieved by incorporating natural materials like hornet’s nests, porcupine quills, thorns, beetles, plants and minerals then coupling them with industrial reliquary such as antique foundry patterns, scientific glass and machine parts. This body of work should be understood not as a literal visual record of how such things might present themselves in the future, but as a conceptual and abstract representation of this idea.

As this body of work continues it will grow to include an installation expanding on the experiments of Baxter and Karamanov. Using their research as a framework, Mimosa Pudica plants will be connected electronically to a 3d printer where they will control, through nastic movement, the creation of enlarged models of pollen spores. These model spores will be constructed in the printer using actual pollen as the building material. In nature the birds, bees, wind etc. act as harbingers for the delivery of this pollen, here we use electrical impulses to carry out this same task. As these pollen models are completed they will move into glass vitrines, which will act as a conceptual incubating and staging area before release into the natural world.