Yao Liu (Liuyeow)| 08.06.2020
Abstract
From our common expression, “nature” always refers to somewhere with sufficient plants, maybe even identifying with the character of wildness. Yet, what is the definition of nature? Is our knowledge of nature correct?
My objective of this article is to deliberate the definition of nature, alongside discussing the requirement, and the significance to empathise with nature. One step further, on the standing point of a designer, I attempt to explore the methods of empathizing with nature.
A walk in the Nature
Last Saturday, I walked around the forest near my apartment. In Switzerland, there are two types of forests, one is non-cultivated forests, as far as I know there are only three in this country, the other is cultivated forest, as is the one that is near me.
I chose a shortcut to enter the forest. After crossing a narrow path with brevity, an expanded road appeared in front of me. This is a fairly straight road that extends all the way to the front. Trees, grass, and other plants stand side by side along this road. The scene before the eyes of me reminded me of what Perec said in his book” Species of Spaces and Other Pieces” [1]:
“The buildings stand one beside the other. They form a straight line. They are expected to form a line, and it’s a serious defect in them when they don’t do so. They are then said to be ‘subject to alignment’, meaning that they can by rights be demolished, so as to be rebuilt in a straight line with the others.”
Indubitably, as the cultivated forest, they must have been heavily influenced
by humans. In some forests I have visited, even every branch of every walking path has a name. Obviously, there are certain navigation systems built inside. As stated in Perec “The parallel alignment of two series of buildings defines what is known as a street.”[1] If I replace those plants which stand alongside the path with buildings, can I say the “path” is no longer a path but rather a street? Then what is the forest?
The definition of forest derived from the Late Latin/Medieval, “forestem silvam”, meaning “the outside woods,” a term from the Capitularies of Charlemagne reference to “the royal forest.”[2] Forest as itself, when received the name”forest”, human had already set the foot in.
I grew up in a city with a 7 million population. In my childhood and the teenage period, I have barely gotten in touch with any kind of forest. Even for my family members, they have seldom experienced forest. When we talk about forest, we always relate it to the word “nature”. In our urbanized cognition, nature is something that is aside from the city which consists of wild animals and wild plants with few human influences. For those times without forests around, I rarely question those vague and broad, maybe even incorrect definitions. Nevertheless, since now I have the opportunity to step myself inside of the forest and sense it. It raised the question from me, “What is forest?” and “What is nature?”
The word “nature” is derived from the Latin word “natura” — “course of things”; It literally meant “birth,” from the word “natus” — “born”. After Shakespeare’s “Tempest”, “nature” has been specifically defined as “the material world beyond human civilization or society; an original, wild, undomesticated condition”.[3]
Notwithstanding, has the definition of nature changed nowadays? Donna Haraway wrote in her article“The promise of monster: a regenerative politics for inappropriate/d others”[4]:
“Nature for us is made, as both fiction and fact. If organisms are natural objects, it is crucial to remember that organisms are not born; they are made in world-changing technoscientific practices by particular collective actors in particular times and places.”
She thinks nature nowadays becomes the product of “relentless artifactual- ism”. With the development of global technology, nature has been denatured. Is “nature” the same “nature” of 300 years ago? Has our cognition of nature been more anthropocentric with the industrialize and capitalize? If so, how can we find the real nature with less human denaturing back? How should we build cognition without an anthropocentric view of nature, and as humans, knowing us as only one element of the whole nature, how should we connect with the other elements? Those are the questions which I want to discuss within this article.
The needs of Empathy
To understand nature better, perhaps we could start with one element which is the most relevant to us — Human. After 2014, if you ever read or searched any science reports about colonies of bacteria that live on and inside of the human body. You would feel astounded by the fact that microbial cells outnumber human cells in the human body by a ratio of around 10:1. However, the fact is, the ratio between resident microbes and human cells is more likely to be one- to-one, according to the calculation made by the researchers in both Israel and Canada in 2016.[5] Still, Humans are not 100% made of human cells. There are around 43% cells inside of our body that are human cells, the rest are micro- scopic colonies, in which are bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria).[6] Conforming to the paper “ Current understanding of the human microbiome”, with 2000 genes per species of the roughly estimated 1000 bacterial species in the gut, is estimated to produce 2,000,000 genes, which is 100 times more than about 20,000 human genes.[7] As Donna Haraway said, “To be one is always to become with many.”[8] The human body is shaped with multiple lives, they are commensal, having a mutualistic relationship with humans, some of them even can harm the human host.[Wikipedia] There is a dance between different life agencies inside of humans, and humans are part of it as well. To know these abundant lives better, they are not just the critters that live together with us and shape us inside and outside physically, they affect us mentally as well. As a consequence, the impact of it is much stronger than we thought. In the study of 2017, researcher John Cryan, at the APC Microbiome Institute at University College Cork in Ireland, with his colleagues reported a link between the microbiome and fear. This report shows us that gut bacteria could influence our brain to alter our mental health and even behavior.[9]
Getting to know ourselves better, we have to know all the organisms that live inside of us better. Considering they are part, or, we can say a considerable part of us. By the same token, to gain a better insight into humans, we have to fully comprehend what the other creatures that live inside of humans, as well as outside of humans. As part of nature, to cognize it, empathize with it is to cognize ourselves and empathize with ourselves. In Haraway’s words, “…we have to learn who they are in all their nonunitary otherness in order to have a conversation on the basis of carefully constructed, multisensory, compounded language.”[8]
Methodology
Hence, what is “empathy”? Empathy is a word used to describe the ability to imagine what others might be thinking or feeling.[10] Researchers normally differentiate between two types of empathy: “Affective empathy” refers to being able to mirror others’ feelings, and “Cognitive empathy,” sometimes called “perspective taking,” commonly refers to the ability that supports us to identify and understand others. The purpose of this paper is to talk about the second type of empathy from the perspective of connecting humans and plants.
PotGi is a digital device that offers a communication network to domesticated plants in pots. It’s a group project built by me, Damaris Büchner, Shafira Nu- groho ,and Danuka Ana Tomas for the course “Spatial Interaction”. Our goal behind PotGi is to create an environment for the plants that allows them to fulfill their social requirements by communicating with each other. The device gathers the information from one plant and transports it to another, even if they are far apart.
In the following content, through elaborate on the process of designing PotGi, I aim to discuss the questions brought from the preceding part of the text and explore the methodology of empathizing with nature.
Start with Micro-
Apparently, Plants have various methods to communicate with each other like the other species likewise. They communicate with each other through all kinds of tiny chemical elements and microbiomes. In the air, they release plumes of volatile chemicals to alert other plants when they are under attack. When the other plants receive this alert, some of them are able to adjust their own internal chemistry accordingly. In the soil, plants communicate with each other with help from the fungi, which colonize the plant’s roots. Those fungi help them absorb water and nutrients additionally.[11] In the forest, trees communicate with each other through those fungi attached to their roots as well. There is even a name for this huge communication net called “the wood wide web.”[12] According to research we did for the first step of our project, we made an infographic about how exactly plants communicate with each other through all kinds of aspects.
We focused on those subtle and invisible natural communications, and thought about how we can bring this natural communication net inside to the house plants and truly help them to grow better and healthier.
Reflect about Anthropocentric mindset
Our purpose in this project is to design a “plant-center” product. It should fol- low the direction of “non-human-center” or “seldom human involvement”. After several ideations, we recognized it is arduous to fully eliminate our anthropocentric mindset. In the project “The Botany of Desire: Experiments in Interspecies Interfaces”[13] from American research-based artist Ani Liu, she asked several critical and philosophical questions which inspired us, withal, are also the questions that we kept reflecting ourselves through the whole process:
- How do we define “nature”?
- What possibilities exist in redesigning nature and its sensory interfaces?
- How much of my own anthropocentric view do I apply on the rest of the world, and can I really escape this framework as a human?
- What are the limits to human-plant communication, or interspecies empathy in general?
- How do these works raise existential questions on our own human relationship to nature itself, or each other?
- How do these designs critique a neoliberal capitalist relationship to nature as an expendable resource?
- If you could speak to plants on their own chemical signatures, what would you want to confess?
There are two major focuses in our project, one is placing plants as the center of our project. This project should be designed for plants, and only for their good. The second is to bring awareness to humans of what nature means, nature is not isolated from our daily life, nature consists of humans as one element with the other creatures as the other elements.
To achieve our goal, we started questioning in the beginning, whether our beloved domestic plants are truly suited for indoor living, or whether the industry has targeted us, urban dwellers, into romanticizing its domestication. After the research phase, the unanimous decision was made to base our project on the idea to make visible what is invisible — In this case to bring awareness on the intricacy of the Mycorrhiza system into the domestic plants.
Following the conceptualization, we began to think about the possibility of technological accomplishment.
PotGi is made out of a few technical components which are easy to assemble. It includes a DIY Soil Moisture Sensor running with Arduino and shiftr.io. The Soil Moisture Sensor collects electrical and activity signals directly out of the soil and from the plant. Through a buzzer, the plant receives the “information” of other plants connected to a PotGi over shiftr.io.
Through the process of visualizing the invisible communication of plants, we tried to reflect on ourselves as humans about how we posit ourselves inside of nature. Do we subconsciously place us as a dominant role or in the center of nature which allows us to dispose of other species’ life without consideration? Do we install the Anthropocene hierarchical system in nature regardless of the essential rule of nature?
Leverage Points
Leverage points are “places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.”(Donella Meadows)[14]
Meadows suggests 12 leverage points and rates them from the least important to the most, based on the scale of ease and efficiency to change. Those points which are difficult to alter or not so impactful such as parameters, numbers, sizes of buffers, etc, are deposited in the least important rank. On the most im- portant side, the goals, the rules, the mindset of the system are distributed in. To adequately empathize with nature, leverage points are one of the imperative methods to introduce. As I see it, the critique which I hold for our project PotGi through the contemplation is the lack of consideration of leverage points. From the outcome, we indeed built a system that could connect all the domestic plants and enable the social connection between them through shiftr.io, but the establishment of the communication net relies exceedingly on humans. Furthermore, due to the loudness produced by plants’ communication (the buzzer will generate sound’s frequency between 200–300 Hz to activate the growth of plants’ roots.), there is less motivation for humans to implement the network system for house plants. Nevertheless, PotGi brought the discussion of the methods to empathize with plants as humans, it also opens a gate to induce us as humans reflecting on our relationship with the other species which aggregate the whole nature with us. Like what Mark Nelson wrote in his book “Pushing our limits”[15]:
“These plants and I were breathing together. They were collectively my third lung. My breathing and metabolism were helping them, and without them, how would I survive?”
Conclusion
The cognition of nature is not something beyond human daily life, neither apart from industrialization and capitalization. Nature originally means “the universe”, integrated by every existence. Unfortunately, today’s nature is tremendously influenced and determined by industrialization and capitalization. If we as one element, sprawl our natural instincts arbitrarily; consciously, or subconsciously wipe out the other elements. There is no other way out for us as well.
Be that as it may, what is the competent way to pull the horse before it falls off the cliff? To my way of thinking, it would be “empathizing with nature”. Guer- gachi, Ngenyama, Magness, and Hakim[16] carry the same opinion with me as well, they proposed that, rather than educating us on overwhelmingly ample rules about environmental friendliness or frugality, empathy would be the more effective and impactful method.
As designers, it is crucial to bring the awareness into projects and stress it.
To empathize with the other species, request us to research and comprehend them thoroughly. Focusing on the micro-, or even the invisible interactions and connections, translate them if it’s possible. Consistently reflect on our position
and perspective. With the anthropocentric and human supremacy view, it is challenging to see nature clearly. Last but not least, introduce the leverage points into the process and examine it profoundly, employing it as a tool, regardless is the tool for conceptualization, structuralization, or for evaluation. Ideally, it could be utilized for the whole design process.
Haraway argues, all kinds of species, no matter if they are living or not, are consequent on a subject- and object- shaping dance of encounters. I antic- ipate every one of us, as one element of nature, enjoys and is positively involved with this dance.
References
[1] Perec, G. and Sturrock, J., 2009. Species Of Spaces And Other Pieces. Brantford, Ont.: W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library.
[2] forest | Search Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved June 8, 2020, from https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=forest
[3] nature | Search Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved June 8, 2020, from https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=nature
[4] Grossberg, L., Pollock, D., Olson, M. J., Frow, J., O’sullivan, T., & Jannifer Daryl Slack. (1996). Cultural studies. Vol. 10, №1. Controversies in cultural studies. Routledge.
[5] Abbott, A. (2016). Scientists bust myth that our bodies have more bacteria than human cells. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2016.19136
[6] Gallagher, J. (2018, April 10). More than half your body is not human. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43674270
[7] Gilbert, J. A., Blaser, M. J., Caporaso, J. G., Jansson, J. K., Lynch, S. V.,
& Knight, R. (2018). Current understanding of the human microbiome. Nature Medicine, 24(4), 392–400. https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4517
[8] Donna Jeanne Haraway. (2008). When species meet. University Of Minneso- ta Press ; |A Bristol.
[9] Lewis, A. (2017, September). How Microbes May Influence Our Behavior. The Scientist Magazine®; The Scientist Magazine. https://www.the-scientist. com/notebook/how-microbes-may-influence-our-behavior-30237
[10] Empathy Definition | What Is Empathy. (2009). Greater Good. https://great-ergood.berkeley.edu/topic/empathy/definition
[11] Can plants talk to each other? — Richard Karban. (2016). [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOXSqy05EO0
[12] BBC News. (2020). How trees secretly talk to each other — BBC News [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWOqeyPIV- Ro&t=5s
[13] the botany of desire. (n.d.). Ani Liu. Retrieved June 8, 2020, from https:// ani-liu.com/botany-of-desire
[14] Meadows, Donella. (1999). Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a Sys- tem, Hartland: The Sustainability Institute.
[15] Nelson, Mark (2018) Pushing Our Limits: Insights from Biosphere 2, Tuc- son: University of Arizona Press.
[16] Guergachi, A.; Ngenyama, O.; Magness, V.; and Hakim, J., “Empathy: a Unifying Approach to Address the Dilemma of ‘Environment versus Economy’” (2010). International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software. 293. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/iemssconference/2010/all/293
[17] R. Kirschner and K. Franinovic, “Microbiospherians: Leveraging Microbes in Biosphere 2”, Journal of Performance Research, Vol. 25, №3: „On Micro- performativity“ Routledge, May 2020.
