Field Studies Version 2 (2009)

Installations
Written By Andrew MacDonald

Photo Credit: Paul Litherland (Images in gallery) Jessica Field (Drawing images)

The Field Studies project is a large installation comprised of 19 robots of varying levels of intelligence. The first level are 10 Protozoan Flagellates, single celled robots, that are shown on a metal table. Next are a group of 4 Hydrozoan robots that uses sensory inputs to drive their outputs. The last group of robots are 5 Anthropods that are displayed in 3 pens on the floor. These Anthropods are modeled from the same AI system as the robot vacuum cleaners and use behaviour based programming.

The installation also has 3 videos presenting the robots. Each video takes on the assumption that the robots are real animals and explains the robot's habitat from this bias. The video Like a robot give the audience in inside view of what it is like to see like the Anthropods exhibited. The other video Ideological Ecologies is a documentary describing the Hydrozoan's ecology. It is a stop motion animation designed to make the audience skeptical about the truth of the video's content. The last video, Anthropod Tales is a narrative much like the nature films from the National Film Board of Canada's Hinterland's Who's Who humanizes the robots and shows their real nature has none of the qualities represented in the video.

The last major element the this installtion are 5 book works that contain the Evolutionary History of each Anthropod in the form of the code that was written for each version of the robot’s AI that lead to its current evolution. The code is written in Assembler with my notes on why each new version of code had to be written in order to improve the robots' abilities to interact with the other robot's and their environment. On looking at these books, the reader gets the full sense of how simple the robots are and how complicated it is to make robot do the most simple activity. The books also play on the idea that the robots are evolving. Each has gone through less than a hundred variations and explains their utter simplicity. This begs the question: How advanced could they become if the creator kept trying to evolve them for millions of years?

Photo Credit: Paul Litherland.

Andrew MacDonald

With more than 20 years in marketing leadership, Andrew brings a clarity-first approach shaped by his early career in the non-profit sector. At World Vision Canada, he managed multi-million-dollar campaigns and drove donor retention strategies; later, at Opportunity International Canada, he built an in-house creative team that delivered innovative, cost-efficient marketing across the country.

Those experiences taught him that effective marketing isn’t about flashy tactics — it’s about strategy, efficiency, and measurable ROI. Today, Andrew applies that discipline to help entrepreneurs escape the “marketing swirl,” invest smarter, and grow with confidence through the Kasama Method™.

Clients describe him as a trusted partner who asks the big questions, simplifies complexity, and always walks alongside them with solutions. He’s passionate about blending strategy and technology in ways that make growth achievable for small and mid-sized businesses.

Beyond Kasama, Andrew gives back by advising local charities and serving on community boards. At home in Quinte, he and his wife Katrina are raising two kids — and when he’s not strategizing for clients, you’ll find him planning the next family beach trip or catching up on post-apocalyptic TV shows.

http://www.kasama.ca/
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Monoliths (2013)
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Field Studies Version 1 (2008)