ANDY WEBSTER
Dirt Batteries for Better Living [2023]
Soil, Plant Pots & Trays, Electrodes, Alligator Cables, Lighting Fixtures
[1.6m x 7.0m x 300mm]
Soil, Plant Pots & Trays, Electrodes, Alligator Cables, Lighting Fixtures
[1.6m x 7.0m x 300mm]
In the 1890s, an entrepreneur named Smithies moved to the Flint Hills of Kansas, believing Tesla’s soil battery technology could provide free electricity for homes. The venture failed, dismissed as impractical. Dirt Batteries for Better Living takes this forgotten “failed” technology and powers ordinary room lighting with hundreds of soil batteries—not to prove the sceptics wrong, but to celebrate what happens when you refuse to let “impractical” mean “impossible,” embracing the beautiful futility where ridiculous scale becomes triumph rather than obstacle.
The artwork was developed with the support of the Volland Foundation in Kansas in 2023.