Continuing the Dialogues

We have concluded the second term in a similar fashion to the previous one with individual displays showcasing the context and the rough outline of our respective interventions.

Display

For my display I choose to go with a refined and more focused version of my display from the first term. I turned two plants into capacitive sensors that triggered different actions when touched. The purpose of the display was to present a rudimentary plant-human-machine interface.

Firstly, when touched it would light up a corresponding resin crystal on top of the ‘mycotower’ that was planted in each of the pots. The intensity of the light was determined by the intensity of touching. This provided an immediate visual response to the person touching the plant and served as an explicit acknowledgement that a human-plant contact has been established.

Secondly, when touched the plants would start connecting floating particles on the Cyberbiomes website. The number of connections depended on the intensity of touching. This gave the plant a form of an agency to affect the user experience of a person browsing the site from the disparate corner of the world. The plant was connected to the world wide web and was able to communicate changes in relation to its immediate environment.

(You can read about the making process and technical setup on the Mycotowers MiniLab post)

I had to ground the whole circuit because of interference from various electronic devices in the room. Due to the position of my display the only viable option was to use my own body to ground the entire setup. I had to take off one of my shoes to provide sufficient contact with the Earth. Given the focus of my project, I found it quite poetic that I myself had to become a part of the circuit and be directly connected to both the plants and the electronics.

Building on top of my material research I used crystals that I had cast from pine resin. Trees use pine resin as a protective layer when damaged or attacked by parasites so this particular material had a symbolic value in the setup.

I have also made a short video which was part of the mandatory deliverables for the presentation. However, in retrospect I find the video lacking significantly in contextualizing my project.

Context

In the days and weeks prior to the presentation, I have been putting together a website that provides the context, references and a conceptual base for my project. I have devised the site as a sort of a lexicon in which I define the term cyberbiome on top followed by a collection of rather esoteric terms and fields of study that are related to my project.

I have constructed the term using the word biomes which includes all the living organisms and the preposition cyber which implies the connection of the said biomes to the digital and cybernetic spheres. The term is a work-in-progress title for my project but it is subject to change since I’m not quite happy with the feel of it despite it being semantically quite fitting. I loosely define cyberbiomes as follows:

hybrid spaces for facilitating synergetic relationships between people, machines and non-human living organisms through the use of novel modes of inter-species communications and interactions

Preview of the site at https://iljapanic.gitlab.io/cyberbiomes/:

Feedback

A steady thread throughout all the discussions I had with both jury and my colleagues was related to the overarching narrative of my project. Even though I have tacitly assumed this before, during the presentation it became crystal clear that the main building block of my intervention is a construction of a captivating, appealing and credible narrative.

A couple of the jury suggested that my project feels like a life-long endeavour to which I wholeheartedly agreed. One jury suggested that what I’m actually designing is a school of thought and other anecdotally suggested that I write a book. This has convinced me of the importance of creating an information-rich and aesthetically pleasing materials repository/booklet to accompany my intervention which will allow the project to live a life of its own after the course is finished.

Another important takeaway was the importance of keeping in mind who is the target group for my intervention. Through a discussion with one of the jury, we have concluded that it would be beneficial for my project to go beyond my tendency for academia and appeal to a wider audience. This would give me more flexibility and freedom in what to (not) include when constructing the narrative.

Particularly, psychedelics came up in a discussion, a topic I have purposefully avoided up to this point, despite it being an integral and historical component in our relation to the non-human. The discussion has convinced me that I should put aside my fear of being discredited, be honest, open, authentic and probably most importantly, true to the essence of the area I’m intervening in.

As part of my intervention, I will be creating an artefact to support and promote my narrative. One of the juries mentioned that experience is more powerful than a narrative which has steered my thinking towards designing an immersive multi-sensory installation that would inspire people to change their relationship with a non-human.

Two more noteworthy themes have cropped up during the discussions. First is the power of rituals and that building some sort of a ritual around my artefact/intervention could be an effective means of engaging the audience. The second was about the pine resin that I have used in my display. The smell of pine resin almost universally evokes the feeling of a forest, this I confirmed both during the presentation and when experimenting with the resin in the lab in the past month. This has inspired me to explore the possibility of simulating the healing, meditative and serene feeling of the forest in an urban context.

Looking ahead

I feel confident that constructing the narrative will not be such a challenge. Therefore, I plan to invest most of my efforts into designing and making the artefact together with the accompanying supporting material.

A rough road map for the 6 weeks of the final term of the course looks like the following:

• week 1 - create a mood board with relevant experiential/interactive installations, put together a document with state of the art in my field of research
• week 2 - scout a specific intervention location, i.e. a specific tree, or a set of trees in Barcelona, define a target group for my intervention, outline a draft of the accompanying booklet
• week 3 - sketch the artefact and contextualize it in the chosen location, make a list of components that I will need to make it, contact relevant people from the field
• week 4 - model and fabricate the physical artefact
• week 5 - program and integrate electronics and sensors into the artefact
• week 6 - test the prototype in the previously chosen location, finish an initial draft of the accompanying booklet