Vegetal Studies

Plant Boxes

Toby's plant boxes.

Deep Ecology in SEP Environmental Ethics

Inspired by Spinoza's metaphysics, another key feature of Næss's deep ecology is the rejection of atomistic individualism. The idea that a human being is such an individual possessing a separate essence, Næss argues, radically separates the human self from the rest of the world. To make such a separation not only leads to selfishness towards other people, but also induces human selfishness towards nature. As a counter to egoism at both the individual and species level, Næss proposes the adoption of an alternative relational “total-feld image” of the world. According to this relationalism, organisms (human or otherwise) are best understood as “knots” in the biospherical net. The identity of a living thing is essentially constituted by its relations to other things in the world, especially its ecological relations to other living things. If people conceptualise themselves and the world in relational terms, the deep ecologists argue, then people will take better care of nature and the world in general.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/

Project Proposal v1

Download cart414-final_proposal.pdf

http://plss.posterous.com/

http://groups.google.com/group/tml-plss

for CART414

System Diagrams v1

Miscellaneous system diagrams drawn in February.

ecopolitical?

Dear Plant People

The questions that are coming up here, as well the other projects referenced, are extremely interesting.

I think that the question of what is an 'ecopolitical' approach here (raised by Xin Wei) is important, though I'm wondering whether I understand the use of the term (i.e as 'non-pointillistic') - does that mean systemic, rather than problem-based?

The thing I find tricky about ecological thought is its ethically normative character, and what the implications are with regard to difference (in values, power, experience and so on). I like Guattari's conception of ecology because (on my reading) the only thing it gives intrinsic value to is processes of expression and change (as opposed, for example, to a unitary or persistent conception of 'nature'). Like Morgan, I distrust many applications of the notion of 'intrinsic value'. I think value always comes from a specific time, place and culture and calling it intrinsic can obscure its politics.

On that note (and given my affection for weeds) I have always been troubled by Guattari's use of Bateson in the epigraph which opens The Three Ecologies: "There is an ecology of bad ideas, just as there is an ecology of weeds."

While I think there are few different ways to read this quote, in the context of PLSS (and Xin Wei's comments below), might it be interesting to consider what an ecopolitics (or political ecology) of weeds might be? Perhaps more inclusively, and returning to the notion of a 'weedy sociality', what is a politics of weediness in this setting? Can weediness be cultivated, and if so, to what ends?

It might also be useful to consider Bruno Latour's "parliament of things", described in painstaking detail in The Politics of Nature. Although I don't think democratic process is a primary concern here, his suggestions for how a much broader variety of agents (both human and non-human) might be given a voice in the re-constitution of democratic societies are both interesting and pragmatic.

I also find Natasha's "Visions for Embodiment in Technoscience" (posted below) an interesting application of related ideas (but drawing on Haraway), especially because it considers actual practices of observation.

Erin

PLSS: Jeremijenko One Trees

Dear TML Plant People,

Natalie Jeremijenko

One Trees Project

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/onetrees/

Natalie's one of the cleverest artists I know. Her One Trees project merits some discussion, because I feel that, even if we might have similarly clever technologies underneath, PLSS is going somewhere else, developing more nuanced sensibilities.

Thinking of (extra-)PLSS conversations with Flower, Jen, Nasrin, Harry, Laura -- I wonder about the difference between explicit and implicit action in the area of eco-political movement.

Here's a part of my wondering:

Ecology teaches that point-solutions and point-thinking can solve a local problem or meet a pointillistic need but head us toward global catastrophe.

"Pointillistic" could be replaced by "explicit," or "zeroth-order" or "degree zero" or "vulgar" (as in a vulgar form of marxist theory).

What would be an ecopolitical and non-pointillistic way to perform ecopolitical action?

Pace Deleuze & Guattari, I think that molecules are points, too, just lots and lots of them. And I'll wager that modern governments and capitalists are much better equipped to molecularize than nomads. While we play our human-sized games in civilized quarters, those governmentalities and instrumentalities are racing far into the nanotechnological under Feynman's characteristic banner: "There's plenty of room at the bottom." (Can you hear the wagon wheels thundering?) (No matter that nanotech is merely a re-branding of chemical engineering and materials science.)

So, if in the TML we follow our method of walking orthogonally to the beat of the drum, in what directions should we head out, initially? (The comfort and the terror is that in an n-manifold, the complementary space to a 1-dimensional trajectory is n-1 dimensional, so... we have a boundless dimension of choices.)

Summarizing a bit from our PLSS chat last week -- we found it useful to think about

useful plants

ornamental (not in Patrick's sense) plants

hurtful plants ...

then there's everything else:

weeds

We could for example cultivate rice and return them to their weedy state of grass. We could grow different species that grow at several different rates and rhythms, thinking ahead to how they sprout, race or dawdle, or how they respond differentially, and therefore contrapuntally to the environment. Thinking as a media choreographer but at vastly slower scales as well as the usual msec scales.

There is a very definite infrastructure no matter what sort of plant you are ( turning and tuning our lab's operations is part of tilling the soil.)

So what about those weeds?

Xin Wei

PS. Personally, I've always believed there is no wild just as there is no chaos, except as names for the limits of our knowledge and power. Perhaps this belief may rest on a Spinozan attitude -- those of you who are reading Spinoza can tell me :)

following up on Mar. 9th meeting

Hello everyone

Here is some more information on the artists/projects I was describing.

The artist from Gatineau working with the light fields of plants: Marie-Jeanne Musiol

http://www.musiol.ca/2-2-en.php

I also have contact info for the moss gardener/artist I mentioned in an earlier post and would be happy to make first contact if there is interest in her moss expertise (let me know).

And since there is not all that much on Gilles Clement's website, I thought I would forward the title of some of his books for those who are interested:

Environ(ne)ment : manières d'agir pour demain = Approaches for tomorrow

This is a bilingual catalogue from an exhibit they had at the CCA in 2006, and it discusses several of his projects, plus his philosophy in general, along with (interstingly) those of an architect concerned with monitoring indoor climate. I know it is in the McGill and the UdeM libraries.

Also, Le jardin en mouvement, which has both theory and practical details; and Éloge des vagabondes which is a more literary treatment of his favorite plants, but includes an illuminating introduction. As far as I know there are no english translations of either of these texts and they might be harder to find in Montreal (though UdeM might have them).

Thanks again for including me in the discussion!

Erin

Flower: Choosing Plants

Hi I have a couple of additions here about plant possibilites, and more about human -plant interactive potenial.

I think that given the praxis of the lab, plant choices could be determined not only by what can be grown, but what you want to grow and why. The way we interact with plants can be much more varied than the excitement of having green, alive things around or the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, or even the negotiation of care and semi-automated systems. (Of course, the negotiation of care is what I am primarily interested in.)

I am thinking of gardens for the blind, which is all about the smell and feel of a plant, and combinations of plants together, and the even the field of aromatherapy (which can actually get pretty strange if you look into it.)

There are also staggered and strange flowering cycles of nicotania or four o'clocks, for example. (One of the things I enjoyed most about the morning glories in the lab was the way they marked time - each bloom existed for one day only, and the fading of the bloom traced the hours of the day dying. Tending to them, and watching the footage, affected my sense of time, and I began to view the cycle of a day differently. (Something about the presence of the eternal within it? ...see Mushishi anime episode 6 for a lyrical variation of this perspective.) I have not formulated this experience, just lived differently while we had that relationship with them.)

Or further into it, plants that respond to stimuli like touch or insects - sundew, venus flytraps, mimosas, of which the second and third are more hardy than the first. These are active plants - they respond with much more measurable movements than (forgive me) garden variety plants.

Anyways: I am sure you have come across Carsten Höller's Solandra Greenhouse? Yes, it is an enclosed space, but the plant/human interaction is intensified, in a pretty interesting way. While it may not offer quantifiable data, the qualifiable experience sounds well worth the effort! Would that I had seen/smelt/experienced this piece!!

And second, below is a list of plants that are used as groundcover for several reasons: not only are they hardy, but they can stand being walked upon. (Walked upon! A bare-feet section of the lab! Plant mats under people's desks! Tiny invasions! Surface coverage!)

For me what is exciting about moss is not only is it green green, but a sense of relationship occurs as you imagine walking on (or under) these soft, magical little fronds. However, these magical little fronds require much more humidity than the lab is capable of (it grows in temperate rainforests), and does not survive being trodden upon. The moss I painstakingly cared for in my cool shady studio under plastic with a dedicated misting system died after two weeks of being downstairs in the FoFA vitrines, even with daily waterings and gel in the soil. I think it was because it needs constant humidity, and cannot survive extreme drying/dousing cycles, and so really would need a nearly closed terrarium-type set up. Perhaps Francine has some different solutions.)

Anyways, check out these plants, and see if they appeal to you:

tough plants:
Blue star creeper Isotoma fluviatilis
Bungleweed Ajuga 'Chocolate chip'
Elfin Thyme Thymus Serpyllum 'Elphin'

drought/ or low water conditions -tolerant:
Irish Moss Sagina subulata
Bird's foot trefoil Lotus corniculatus 'Plenus'
Golden Creeping Jenny Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea'
Mazus Mazus reptans Purple
Scotch moss
Golden Beauty
John Creech

My current favorite-
Wooly Thyme

These are lots of words from me.
Cheers plantss people,
Flower

Morgan: Choosing Plants

Welcome Erin!

With you on board I think we have just as many 'plant experts' as 'tech experts' (as it should be).

There are plants which will survive a range of conditions but can
still be relatively sensitive or communicative about their needs. I am
thinking mostly of flowering plants that only bloom when they've got
everything they need (e.g. african violets, geraniums). I also had a
Kentia palm which was very quick to go brown at the tips (from
irregular watering) but kept producing new growth almost no matter
what.

This is good to know. I think we need to talk about the extent to which we should choose plants to fit the lab environment (warm, dry, constant) vs. trying to keep things that 'don't belong' their alive with technical means.

What about plants that are active/communicative in ways other than
signaling distress, such as having the tendency to grow rapidly, or
reproduce (spider plants and piggyback plants both produce little
plantlets as a reproductive strategy). Of course, young seedlings of
many plants will be both communicative about their needs, and likely
to change substantially over a short period of time. Would seedlings
of food plants be of interest for this prototype - perhaps started
from seed?

This is interesting...represents a new challenge for plant sensing.

I also wanted to put out there that there is an artist in Montreal
(Francine Larivee) who has done research on which species of moss do
well indoors, under what conditions of care. She made several indoor
moss gardens and collaborated with a biologist at the botanical garden
to get it right. Moss is pretty sensitive, also interesting in that (I
think) it invites close-up looking, also touching, though I don't know
if that's wanted.

We should get in touch with her. Inspired by Flower, I would love to grow moss 'on the floor' in the lab.

M