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| groworld_hpi_ii [2008-06-06 10:02] – 81.188.78.24 | groworld_hpi_ii [2009-03-13 16:59] (current) – 193.191.173.110 |
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| ====Cursory Speculations on HPI (Human Plant Interaction)==== | ====Cursory Speculations on HPI (Human Plant Interaction)==== |
| (...as an extended/distended rewrite of [[groworld HPI]]) | |
| | (...as an extended/distended rewrite of [[groworld HPI]] for ISEA2008) |
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| by [[Maja Kuzmanovic]] and [[Nik Gaffney]], [[FoAM]], Belgium | by [[Maja Kuzmanovic]] and [[Nik Gaffney]], [[FoAM]], Belgium |
| “Our present global crisis is more profound than any previous historical crises; hence our solutions must be equally drastic. I propose that we should adopt the plant as the organizational model for life in the 21st century, just as the computer seems to be the dominant mental/social model of the late twentieth century, and the steam engine was the guiding image of the nineteenth century.” (McKenna, 1992) | “Our present global crisis is more profound than any previous historical crises; hence our solutions must be equally drastic. I propose that we should adopt the plant as the organizational model for life in the 21st century, just as the computer seems to be the dominant mental/social model of the late twentieth century, and the steam engine was the guiding image of the nineteenth century.” (McKenna, 1992) |
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| Over millennia of evolution, humans developed increasing mobilty between places, avoiding environmental or social degradation by moving 'away'. On a cosmic scale, we are earth-bound organisms just as immobile as plants - there is no 'away' for a globalised human society. As our economies and cultures operate on an increasingly planetary scale, current instabilities cannot be overcome by moving 'away' - adaption needs to come from within. By suggesting “plants as organisational models” McKenna underlines several urgent human needs - to understand the value of diversity and collaboration over monocultures of competition; to approach problem-solving through whole systems thinking, rather than pure reductionism; to redesign industry and economics to adopt more cyclical, "cradle to cradle" processes (McDonough, 2002). The rise of nanotechnology and a “global, atmosphere-based energy economy” can be completely in harmony with detoxifying the natural environment and preserving biodiversity, if we as a species are willing to take the risks of “reestablishing channels of direct communication with the planetary Other, the mind behind nature” (McKenna, 1992). While McKenna's recommended lenses are the plant based psychedelic tryptamines((In particular; DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine), Psilocybin (4-Phosphoraloxy-N, N-DMT) and 5-Methoxy-DMT as contained in Virola or Ayahuasca preparations.)) (uncannily similar in structure to some human neurotransmitters((cf. Serotonin (5-Hydroxytryptamine) or Melatonin (5-Methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine)))), we suggest that a symbiotic HPI provides a technological analog and as such, is simultaneously more feasible, acceptable and perhaps insidious to a civilisation reinforced by global ICT. These technologies appear at the 'surface', an area of contact between the dissimilar realms of humans and machines. To operate on this surface, HCI reduces the range of human expressions in exchange for enhancing those actions in reasonably specific, agreed upon ways. Thus HCI is insular, autistic and often mute. Near future, bio- and eco-technology suggest the possibility for HPI to act at different scales with the living systems surrounding us, working with patterns, gradients and potentials. From rhizome to rainforest. From Deleuze & Guattari's "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the rhizome, to the "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the deeply interconnected, multivalent, multiplicit unity formed by a rainforest ecosystem. A "Pataecology", an ecological, biomimietic systems thinking, an ecology "superinduced upon metaphysics [...] extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics." (Jarry, 1996) An ecology of imaginary solutions, inhabited by the plausible and improbable, as they pollinate or mutate, eating or being eaten. | Over millennia of evolution, humans developed increasing mobilty between places, avoiding environmental or social degradation by moving 'away'. On a cosmic scale, we are earth-bound organisms just as immobile as plants - there is no 'away' for a globalised human society. As our economies and cultures operate on an increasingly planetary scale, current instabilities cannot be overcome by moving 'away' - adaption needs to come from within. By suggesting “plants as organisational models” McKenna underlines several urgent human needs - to understand the value of diversity and collaboration over monocultures of competition; to approach problem-solving through whole systems thinking, rather than pure reductionism; to redesign industry and economics to adopt more cyclical, "cradle to cradle" processes (McDonough, 2002). The rise of nanotechnology and a “global, atmosphere-based energy economy” can be completely in harmony with detoxifying the natural environment and preserving biodiversity, if we as a species are willing to take the risks of “reestablishing channels of direct communication with the planetary Other, the mind behind nature” (McKenna, 1992). While McKenna's recommended lenses are the plant based psychedelic tryptamines((In particular; DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine), Psilocybin (4-Phosphoraloxy-N, N-DMT) and 5-Methoxy-DMT as contained in Virola or Ayahuasca preparations.)) (uncannily similar in structure to some human neurotransmitters((cf. Serotonin (5-Hydroxytryptamine) or Melatonin (5-Methoxy-N-acetyltryptamine) )) ), we suggest that a symbiotic HPI provides a technological analog and as such, is simultaneously more feasible, acceptable and perhaps insidious to a civilisation reinforced by global ICT. These technologies appear at the 'surface', an area of contact between the dissimilar realms of humans and machines. To operate on this surface, HCI reduces the range of human expressions in exchange for enhancing those actions in reasonably specific, agreed upon ways. Thus HCI is insular, autistic and often mute. Near future, bio- and eco-technology suggest the possibility for HPI to act at different scales with the living systems surrounding us, working with patterns, gradients and potentials. From rhizome to rainforest. From Deleuze & Guattari's "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the rhizome, to the "and . . . and . . . and. . ." of the deeply interconnected, multivalent, multiplicit unity formed by a rainforest ecosystem. A "Pataecology", an ecological, biomimietic systems thinking, an ecology "superinduced upon metaphysics [...] extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics." (Jarry, 1996) An ecology of imaginary solutions, inhabited by the plausible and improbable, as they pollinate or mutate, eating or being eaten. |
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| ====Cellular Communications - Chemical Concurrency==== | ====Cellular Communications - Chemical Concurrency==== |
| It is important to realise that HPI may not be able emerge without a technological substrate, a medition layer analogous to a cell membrane or langauge interpreter. For such technologies to become possible, HCI specifically, and computing in general, needs a radical shift away from serial, singular, fragile systems to embrace the ditributed, concurrent, robust techniques nature utililses. We are seeing the beginings of such a departure with theories from biologically inspired computing((Amorphous Computing (Beal, 2004) or Membrane Computing (Păun, 2004) for example.)) and in a more practical domain, languages such as Erlang((Information about Erlang can be found at http://erlang.org/faq/faq.html)). | It is important to realise that HPI may not be able emerge without a technological substrate, a medition layer analogous to a cell membrane or langauge interpreter. For such technologies to become possible, HCI specifically, and computing in general, needs a radical shift away from serial, singular, fragile systems to embrace the ditributed, concurrent, robust techniques nature utililses. We are seeing the beginings of such a departure with theories from biologically inspired computing((Amorphous Computing (Beal, 2004) or Membrane Computing (Păun, 2004) for example.)) and in a more practical domain, languages such as Erlang((Information about Erlang can be found at http://erlang.org/faq/faq.html)). |
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| Aside from 'archaic' ethnobotanical experiments, what are the ways to establish a two-way interface for communication between humans and plants? The notions of space, time, movement and persistence differ greatly between the human and botanical realms. Where human progress is often described as linear, the progression of plants is cyclical, seasonal. On a larger scale, humans and plants both occupy interdependent regional habitats, which temper and define them. In order to interface with plants,humans would need to go through a gradual time-unbinding((In the 'General Semantics' proposed by Alfred Korzybski, 'time binding' diferentiates human activity from the 'space binding' and 'energy binding' activities which define animals and plants respectivly. (Korzybski, 1995))), a relinquishing of the short-term, short-lived, incremental and individualistic advances, for slower, collective cycles of growth and decay. Successful time-unbinding may be enough to allow communication with plants about our divergent perceptions of space and movement, but would humans be able to grasp what it is like to be a forest, consisting of billions of roots and rhizomes, trillions of leaves, stems, branches, flowers and insects? Would our thinking become more reticulate, our logic less linear? Can we enhance the embodied, subtle chemical communication that give the plants their shape and function, as well as ability to signal, attract (and repel), or feed other organisms? What can we learn from the effects of plant alkaloids on human physiology? What human abilities would appeal to plants? Would these communications lead to a more integrated, holistic consciousness? | Aside from 'archaic' ethnobotanical experiments, what are the ways to establish a two-way interface for communication between humans and plants? The notions of space, time, movement and persistence differ greatly between the human and botanical realms. Where human progress is often described as linear, the progression of plants is cyclical, seasonal. On a larger scale, humans and plants both occupy interdependent regional habitats, which temper and define them. In order to interface with plants, humans would need to go through a gradual time-unbinding((In the 'General Semantics' proposed by Alfred Korzybski, 'time binding' diferentiates human activity from the 'space binding' and 'energy binding' activities which define animals and plants respectivly. (Korzybski, 1995) )), a relinquishing of the short-term, short-lived, incremental and individualistic advances, for slower, collective cycles of growth and decay. Successful time-unbinding may be enough to allow communication with plants about our divergent perceptions of space and movement, but would humans be able to grasp what it is like to be a forest, consisting of billions of roots and rhizomes, trillions of leaves, stems, branches, flowers and insects? Would our thinking become more reticulate, our logic less linear? Can we enhance the embodied, subtle chemical communication that give the plants their shape and function, as well as ability to signal, attract (and repel), or feed other organisms? What can we learn from the effects of plant alkaloids on human physiology? What human abilities would appeal to plants? Would these communications lead to a more integrated, holistic consciousness? |
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| ====The Vegetal Mind - from Viriditas to Thalience==== | ====The Vegetal Mind - from Viriditas to Thalience==== |
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