Physic-AI Garden

Alex May developed Physic-AI Garden with Anna Dumitriu as an interactive digital garden shaped by research from the EU CAPABLE project. Visitors plant virtual seeds representing different pharmaceutical treatments and watch them flourish, compete, or fail depending on how those drugs interact. Drawing on ideas from permaculture and the historic physic garden, the work turns complex medical decision systems into a form that is visual, experiential, and accessible without losing its underlying seriousness.

By casting treatment choices as planting, flourishing, and failure, the work gives medical data a bodily and ecological rhythm. It does not simplify the research so much as relocate it into an environment where support and harm can be felt together. That move aligns with May’s broader interest in how technical systems shape trust, perception, and the conditions under which something becomes meaningful.

Additional notes

• Created with Anna Dumitriu through the CAPABLE project, an EU-funded research collaboration focused on supporting cancer patients, carers, and clinicians through AI, app development, and wearable technologies.
• Commissioned by CAPABLE, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 875052.
• The work exists in multiple forms, including a fully interactive installation, a video installation, 2D printed works, and large-scale building projection.
• The interactive installation premiered at the Technical Museum at Politehnica University Timisoara on 29 September 2023, with later presentations in Timisoara, Milan, Oundle, New York, and King’s Lynn through 2025.