lovely idea :)
sketch something !
Remember Flower's moss landscape downstairs in the vitrine of the FoFA Gallery? It took long tending but was carefully worked out. She also had very very lovely surface mount LEDs on single strands of conductive thread suspended in the airspace over head. Of course, I encourage thoughtful response, not simple imitation or repetition. We can always have the pleasure of a response that is simultaneously aesthetic as well as critical, micro-political, and material.
In the spirit of the topological, maybe you can imagine how our furniture, electrical, computer, dirt, water systems can live in superposition. For example, perhaps we can layer different grades of material concentric disks of increasing diameter (roughly cut to adapt to the shape of the floor space that we have) ... Perhaps, top to bottom, can be layers transitioning from plant - water - soil - absorbent mater ial - waterproof material . It need not be all that thick, just enough so that there is a natural transition to the stratum of sealed concrete + electrical cables and shoed traffic ... Also the shape merits careful thought, greenways vs disks?
Thinking of diapers with multiple absorbent layers :)
Or should there be a few lightweight trays / bins suspended at chest , knee, overhead heights as well? (easier to reach for tending)
Also, think about how we might use the tracks on the overhead rail, to make it possible to move assemblies around the room -- by the windows sometimes for sun, then by the interior corner under re-directed light (via mirrors) ... somewhat like a miniature orrery -- with a plant-assembly moving week to week in orbit around the lab. If the system is modular that would be more feasible.
The modules can be maybe in 2 or 3 sizes, one large enough to grow edibles (but "food" is utility) , another more the size of ordinary houseplant pots ...
back to the original impetus. the idea of wilderness. Maja Kuzmanovic and I wrote a little article for DIAC ca. 2000 wondering about wilderness in the city. What would it mean? It's fashionable (and correct) to note that there is no Nature-in-itself, that Nature is highly socially constructed. But there is still earth and wilderness, just that we have very little, well, no language to denote wilderness. But we can speak indirectly, as we do of everything extra-semiotic. What are the qualities of the wild that you would like to have in play? It's not entropy but vitality. We may ask for vitality but get entropy instead... It's very interesting -- let's follow these tendrils onward ...
... ?
Xin Wei
cc. Jane and Josee-Anne since they should be aware of this PLSS thread, and are editing the TML viral publishing initiative :)