A New Eco-Kinship
Exploring a new relationship with nature and the plants we bring into our homes
Team
Independent - Master’s Thesis
Year
2020-2021
Project
This project was an investigation into the relationship between people and their houseplants, and explores how we might amplify this novel relationship to support our well-being and empathy for nature. The primary work, the Botanagraph, creates a visual interpretation of the the liveliness of plants beyond human observation in which the plant becomes a partner in creating artwork that captures the essence of its vigor.
The pandemic reshaped much of my graduate school experience, steering me away from thesis topics that were no longer feasible due to distancing restrictions. But in that detour, I found a silver lining—an unexpected chance to dive into a topic I had been curious about for years, turning the challenge into a creative and personal research opportunity.
The Botanagraph used the variance of conductivity in minor electrical currents through a plant’s roots and leaves to deliver a real-time display of a plant’s fluctuating inner workings.
Exploring and Enriching our Relationship with Nature
The series of illustrations is a compendium of experiments in bioart, data storytelling, and physical computing as part of my thesis which explores how we might amplify the novel relationship between people and their houseplants, to support our well-being and empathy for nature.
Bringing plants inside our homes changes the conditions we relate to nature - they become a part of the personal, private sphere of our life and fosters a novel relationship that reflects our capacity to intimately connect with nature. The Botanagraph is not a speculation on plant intelligence, feelings, or state of health, but rather demonstrates the dynamic life of plants we are unable to perceive.
In my exhibition, I tied together the connection of people with their houseplants using excerpts from my research to laser cut plant tiles with meaningful statements from my participants in their own handwriting.
How I Got There: Mixed Methods Research
The initial step in this project was to define my assumptions and research those most important to my line of inquiry. I used quantitative methods to form a baseline understanding of general values, behaviors, and attitudes of houseplant owners.
Using a range of methods was key to building an effective, flexible strategy for success with limited access to resources during the pandemic. Online surveys and worksheets were used to form a baseline understanding of general values, behaviors, and attitudes of houseplant owners and to determine useful qualitative methods for diving deeper into my line of inquiry. In addition to stakeholder and expert interviews, I used stakeholder journaling as a technique to better understand the day-to-day experiences and effects of houseplants on their owners in which participants spent one week logging interactions with their plants.
With little existing research in this space, diverse secondary research into botany, environmental psychology, philosophy, art, and media supported my thesis work.
Participants throughout my research were enthusiastic about sharing photos of their plants, from their entire collection, to how they care for them, to individual successes of a single plant, like a new emerging leaf.
I distributed a short worksheet with a series of open-ended questions to better understand if and how people see themselves connected to plants. These are a few more artistic responses to the final question, “What kind of kin are plants”?
Synthesizing the Research
After testing assumptions, I distilled all of the research participants into five archetypes of houseplant owners, identified areas of opportunity to improve their houseplant relationship, and defined the project criteria.
One intriguing discovery from my research was a common experience among many participants: after getting their first few plants, they quickly found themselves eager to expand their collection. This newfound passion for adding more greenery seemed to catch them by surprise, creating a shared sense of excitement and growth.
The research weaved between broad reflections on participants' ties to nature and more focused, personal insights into their relationships with house plants.
Ideation
To begin creating divergent ideas, I broke down key insights to better understand how various aspects of the research could relate in new ways. Using the resulting mind map, I narrowed in on specific design criteria which framed the area of focus to brainstorm possible solutions.
A series of brainstorming was necessary for the concept itself, the visual output, and their overlap as a physical device within the given time period.
The ideation process also encompassed creatively tackled how to visually encode data, ensuring that insights were both captivating and deliverable within a tight timeframe.
Conceptual sketches were instrumental in illustrating and clarifying how the idea would function.
Prototyping and Building
Two prototypes of the BotanaGraph were created for the project. The first prototype established the efficacy of a number of technical components including the electrode clips, direct current motors, and Arduino codebase.
The second iteration is the working prototype and continued to undergo incremental improvements to the fabrication and code while creating the final series of artwork. Each piece was generated by an individual plant in eight to twelve hours. The Botanagraph was built in collaboration with Industrial Designer, Garrett Dobbs.
