Design for Entangled Habitation: Human-Plants Interaction Towards More-Than-Human Bodies

Abstract

Entangled habitation refers to a deeply intertwined and entangled living status between human and non-human beings, e.g., plants. In this paper, we explore the entangled habitation design concept to advocate a more-than-human perspective in human-nature interaction design. Following the entangled habitation design concept, we implemented three plant-based wearables to reframe human’s interactions with plants. VibrateNerve translates the leaves’ wellbeing information (i.e., temperature) to vibrations on a wearable ring that simulates pain. BreatheTogether transforms plants’ photosynthesis effectiveness into the floating air inside a wearable lung that mimics breathing. Finally, GrowthTouch collects plants’ real-time motion and maps it to intimate touch in a wearable mask. All three wearables constructed the plantness on human bodies and fundamentally questioning what plants can and might be an entangled part of human and cohabitate with human. Our design speculations also demonstrate a framework extend nonhuman sensory capabilities into human body perceptions and produce an entangled habitation.

Figure 1. A. VibrateNerve is a wearable artifact on the finger and arm that integrates multiple sensors to assess and feel the plants stress through vibration. B. BreathTogether is a wearable artifact that physicalizes plant’s breath with the varying size of an airbag by interacting with the photosynthesis data of a plant. C. GrowthTouch simulate intimate touch triggered by plants’ actual movement on human face.

INTRODUCTION

We are living in the Anthropocene age where humans are the leading cause of climate and geology changes [38]. The idea that “human beings is the essence of the universe and the primate of all things” [31] has increasingly shown its frangibility and limitation in the modern technological revolution. Global warming, wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather phenomena pose a threat to human and nonhuman lives, communities, and essential infrastructure [39] [40]. As an essential part of the ecology, plants have a very complex and diverse influence on the climate system [41]. For example, the way plants react to carbon dioxide is critical for accurate climate forecasting [41] . This fact draws our attention to start to speculate what is an alternative and preferable relationship for human and plant.

Human-computer interaction (HCI) research historically pursue ease-of-use [42] and focused on improving user experience [23] from a human-centered perspective [36]. Recent calls for sustainable HCI [5], posthuman design [37,43–45] and more-than-human perspectives [8,13] are emerging. More-than-human perspective highlights the co-constitutive role of non-human aspects, instead of regarding human as an independent who dominates the world [13]. Such posthuman perspective presents opportunities to design plants as a medium that develops our noticing for a more-than-human world and overcome problematic narratives of human privilege and exceptionalism. In this work, we fundamentally question what plants can and might mean as a co-constitutive role of non-human aspects. To further explore the entangled habitation design concept for human-plant interaction, we make experiencing plantness possible both through wearable technologies and our senses of self and way of being. We use ‘arts of noticing’ as a method [21], which refers to the act of paying attention to the more-than-human world with open, attentive and responsible mindset. Our goal is to decenter the human in the design process and demonstrate how human bodies can be approached through entangled habituating with plants.

We propose the concept of “entangled cohabitation” between humans and plants with a more-than-human approach. By entangled cohabitation, we build symbiosis with plants both through wearable technologies and in terms of our sense of self and way of being. We explore the human body as a tangible media for interaction in an attempt to design beyond the limitations of our current screen-based and hand-held technological devices. We design a set of wearable “organs” based on houseplants as an approach towards embodied interaction design. [5] Our design research introduces the design process of constructing nonhuman embodiments by representing plants’ consciousness onto human bodies. Through the following subjective experience, we examine how these wearable artefacts build the entanglement between human and nonhuman.

We use ‘arts of noticing’ as a method and more-than-human approach to the human body for the research process. We aim to decenter the human and demonstrate how human bodies can be approached as more-than-human through the entangled habitation with plants. Based on plants’ bodies, we proposed a series of wearable artifacts following the concept of “entangled cohabitation” to explore multisensory interaction: PainNerve, is a ring that simulates pain on the human body based on plants’ leaves wellbeing. BreatheTogether is a wearable lung on the neck that physically embodies plants’ breathe by transforming the data of its photosynthesis effectiveness; DistantTouch, designed for face wearing, simulates touch with “hands” that are triggered by plants’ real time movement (influenced by growth, sunshine, wind.)

Each design adopted different sensors and materials to build nonhuman organs on the human body, which integrates a wider definition of the user in HCI as a sensing, moving, and performative body. [5] Our embodied interaction design for plants serves as the medium to combine human bodies with plants and produce more-than-human symbiote. Through these provocations, we enhance human’s ‘noticing’ ability for nonhuman objects and speculate an alternative future.

This paper’s contribution comes primarily in “the second organs” design — our design speculations for human-plants interaction towards a more-than-human future. These designs demonstrate a framework of how wearable artifacts build embodiment for nonhuman objects, thus extending nonhuman sensory capabilities into human bodies and producing entangled habitation.

1. RELATED WORK
2. Human-species Interaction

HCI researchers have been working on bio-design and human-species interaction by letting organism participating in the interaction system using the natural habitats, behaviors, and metabolisms[]. Those studies binding human and nonhuman aspects to build multi-species relationship by fostering affective emotion towards microbes[], creating physical visualization via bacteria[], building humidity-interactive media using natto cells [], designing kinetic interaction with algae[], exploring cybernetic system in plants[], and learning birds through ambient sound[]. Pataranutaporn et al. adopted microbes as bio-computers in order to enable human-microbe interactions across different contexts and scales. In response to ​​the calls to “think beyond the human”, Fell et al. move forward to extending anthropocentric concern for vegetal life in HCI with a biocentric view on interactions between humans and nature.

Despite the fact that digital technology dominates contemporary industrialized societies, these initiatives show that organic and biological systems may be used to rebuild our relationship with ecology. While these provocations focus on different frameworks of interaction, we take interaction as a starting point and move forward to renewing humans’ perception and building entangled relationships between human and nonhuman. Therefore, our objective is to take a step further and build more-than-human symbiosis following the theory of posthumanism based on human-nonhuman interaction.

Decentering the Human

[Haraway] [Anna Tsing] To produce an alternative future, Light et al. propose a pathway by designing “to unseat humans from the center of the universe and support a more equitable gaze”. Frauenberger proposed Entanglement human-computer interaction (HCI) that looks to post-humanism and relational ontologies. He stated that more-than-human theories “are not denying the social construction of our knowledge about the world, but seek to emphasise that the world is no passive object in this process, but rather is intimately entangled in the knowledge production”. Based on his study, Sarah et al. proposed “more-than-human” to refer to the approaches of entanglement theories in general and highlight the co-constitutive role of non-human aspects.

The HCI community has responded to the call by examining the potential of posthuman design and its consequences. Liu et al. introduced the concept of collaborative survival and translated this theory into practice in the process of creating three provocations. Heidi et.al examine how noticing affects us and our way of relating to birds through an autoethnographic bird watching practice. Smith et.al unpack the entanglements of animal-human-computer interaction and promote new forms of cohabitation. Liu et al. used photography as a method to examine naturecultures. Her team also presented an ethnographic study on alternative agriculture.

HCI researchers have also proposed design practices from a more-than-human perspective to push forward cultural change. Clarke et al. explored the ‘more-than-human’ perspective by proposing a participatory speculative urban walk. Akama et al. offered novel thoughts on ‘participation otherwise’ , committing the concerns of climate and existential crises. Houston et al. identify multispecies entanglements and becoming-world as two directions for planning theory.

We can see the beginnings of a new, more ecological way of thinking in all of this, though the paths to having a significant effect on the mainstream are still unclear. Our works aim to design for noticing and create kinship across species with a more-than-human approach to the human body. Through the research process and designed artifacts, we renew humans’ sense of connection with the other beings in the world so as to help us perceive the world with a more equal gaze.

DESIGN PROCESS & METHOD

Exploring the arts of noticing as a method was a starting point for our research and was a methodology we had been examining. We also draw from theories of posthumanism and a more-than-human approach with emphasis on decentering the human in design as part of our contribution to the project.

During the Covid outbreak, the isolation time at home drew Bao’s attention to the several houseplants that she had kept for months. She suddenly felt a sense of comfort when she realized that they are the living lives that were accompanying her all the time in this isolated space. She became aware that she was, at that time, noting that she had entered into a new connection with a local ecosystem, as she was still digesting the more-than-human perspective in ecological posthumanist theory. There was nothing better than the plants that were around her all the time as a departure to engage with and notice the nonhuman world. These plants served as a physical visualization of her lifestyle: the plants grew fast when she remembered to take care of them; they had some of their leaves withered when she was too busy to water. This seemingly normal interaction drew her to think about how to build deeper understanding and even renew the way humans and plants cohabitate in the world with the more-than-human approach. Instead of simply taking care of the plants and watching them from a distance only for aesthetics, what would people perceive the plants if they are decentered and connect with the plants with increased noticing? Taking plants as a starting point and medium, how would humans develop the ecologically more-than-human perspective towards themselves and the world if they can enact with the surrounding nonhuman aspects in a posthuman way?

Keeping those questions in mind, we started with our in-depth observation of plants with multiple monitoring sensors to collect data, including humidity, temperature, heat, photosynthesis and movement. With the help of this monitoring technology, we explored and discovered the performative aspect of plants that humans could barely notice and perceive. There were many touching moments that we experienced during noticing, as we realized that plants are alive not only during the moment when we see that the leaves are healthily green, soil is moist, buds are blooming. Plants are savagely growing at every single moment: they are breathing all the time, moving all the time, and they have their own body heat that is changing all the time just like human beings. To conclude, what she began to realize about the plants was something she never noticed before — the desire, the wanting, of a living plant. We continued to speculate that those sharing the essence of life could be the node that somatically binds humans and plants as a symbiote. There came our concept of “the second organs” — to design for noticing by connecting the physiological responses between humans and plants through the design of wearable artifacts on the human body. The designed plants’ “organs” and human body jointly form a more-than-human body that decenters the human and speaks to a posthuman world.

The proposed artifacts start with collecting data of plants’ bodies. This approach is aided and performed by the use of digital technology to collect and convert these unique outputs and signals in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes. Individual variations between plants’ bodies provide valuable data. Then, we come up with ideas to transform plants’ data into built organs that humans can perceive and live with. Following Merleau-Ponty, embodiment is “being-in-the-world”, and with embodiment, the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is overcome. By building an organ(body) for plants, we add another layer for nonhuman’s way of being in the world. Plants’ existence are extended to human bodies in a form of embodied organ, together they form the state of entangled habitation.

Working with the team, she created three speculative artifacts to deeply observe and engage with the plants. Firstly, they serve as tools to synthesize observations about how she and the plants’ interactions and intimacies shifted over time. Those provocations were both the outcomes of the research as well as the medium for next-step digging of the more-than-human body. Bao can engage in performative and somatic practices by testing and wearing these artifacts, which enable her to use a full range of emotions, senses, and experiences to investigate the noticing. Therefore, this process helps her better understand or empathize with the plants for whom she designs, thus coming up with in-depth subjective sensory experience for discussion.

Besides, these provocations on the human body also constructed narratives for posthuman future storytelling. The artifacts together with the human body form a product that transforms the world from its current state to a preferred state. By structuring the scenario and stories, we aim to generate insights for an alternative future for later researchers to embark on. To conclude, our research process included research through design, speculative design, design fiction, embodied interaction design and somaesthetic interaction design.

#1 VibrateNerve

Inspired by soma design’s manifesto to “focus on bodies and perception”, we ideated the first artifact to simulate common senses of plants on human bodies. In this way, a sense of symbiosis and empathy will be evoked in human perception, which is a potential way to practice arts of noticing. Specifically, we aim to design the noticing by bodily connecting humans and plants and building sharing sensation via the interaction. We provoked a wearable artifact on the finger and arm that integrates multiple sensors to assess and feel the plants stress through thermal imaging.

VibrateNerve is a wearable artifact on the finger and arm that integrates multiple sensors to assess and feel the plants stress through vibration

This design (see Figure 1-A) is based on the fact that temperature is one of the physiological indicators for assessing plants’ wellbeing. Thermal imaging has been a feasible technology to detect the surface temperature for plants’ stress detection. Thermal long-wave infrared (TIR) cameras (or simply thermal cameras) are calibrated sensors able to record emitted radiation in the thermal range (8–14 µm) and provide images representing temperature values per pixel. Different physical and chemical disturbances caused by pathogens affect the plant water status, which can be monitored by thermography [3,12,32]. While this imaging techniques has been an essential tool in agriculture[28], it offers insights for building intimacy between humans and the plants surrounding them through the process of assessing plants’ wellbeing. The designed artifact integrates a thermal camera, humidity sensor, vibration motor and LCD screen on the finger and arm. To assess and care for the plants’ health, a user needs to directly touch the plants’ leaves with finger. If the stress is detected, the motor will vibrate and create a feel of pain/ stress on the user’s arm, thus enhancing empathy between humans and plants.

TempTouch

2021/07/14

Every plant has its own temp, and it is an important standard for assessing the plants’ health. Most of the current studies apply this tech by putting a thermal cam near the plants reading the data. This is a common but industrialized way of ‘noticing’ the plants. Yet, the intimacy and relationship is lacked. I aim to raise the notice by physically connecting humans and plants, by designing a wearable sensor that integrates thermal cam, humidity sensor, vibration motor and LCD screen. To assess and care for the plants’ health, a user should touch the plants’ leaves with his finger. If the stress is detected, the product will vibrate and create a feel of “pain” or “stress” on the user’s arm, thus enhancing empathy between humans and plants.

First week prototype

The final code (define part is omited):

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(19200);
tft.initR(INITR_144GREENTAB);   // initialize a ST7735S chip, black tab
tft.fillScreen(ST7735_BLACK);
displayPixelWidth = tft.width() / 8;
displayPixelHeight = tft.height() / 8;
    bool status;
    
    // default settings
    status = amg.begin();
    if (!status) {
        Serial.println("Could not find a valid AMG88xx sensor, check wiring!");
        while (1);
    }
    
}
void loop() {
  amg.readPixels(pixels);
      int chk = DHT11.read(DHT11PIN);
      HighTemp=0;
      sum=0;
      digitalWrite(motorPin,LOW);
for(int i=0; i<AMG88xx_PIXEL_ARRAY_SIZE; i++){
    uint8_t colorIndex = map(pixels[i], MINTEMP, MAXTEMP, 0, 255);
    colorIndex = constrain(colorIndex, 0, 255);
      if (pixels[i-1] > HighTemp) HighTemp = pixels[i-1];
     sum += pixels[i-1];
    //显示热成像
    tft.fillRect(displayPixelHeight * floor(i / 8), displayPixelWidth * (i % 8),
    displayPixelHeight, displayPixelWidth, camColors[colorIndex]);
  }
     Serial.println();
     Serial.print((float)DHT11.humidity, 2); //环境湿度
     Serial.print(", ");
     Serial.print((float)DHT11.temperature, 2); //环境温度
     Serial.print(", ");      
     
     float AveTemp = sum/64;
     Serial.print(AveTemp,2); //叶片平均温度
      Serial.print(", ");      
      Serial.print(HighTemp,2); //叶片最高温度
      Serial.print(", ");
      Serial.print(LowTemp,2); //叶片最低温度
      Serial.println();
      delay(2000);
    //判定是否健康
    if (HighTemp-((float)DHT11.temperature) > 1 ) {
      digitalWrite(motorPin, HIGH); //vibrate
      delay (1000);
      digitalWrite(motorPin,LOW);
    }
}

I recorded the temp data for 24h of three different plants: Green Radish 绿箩，Gardenia 栀子花，Begonia 铁海棠. Next step I’m thinking how to actually assess the health with thermal cam. According to the scientific research, it has to be used with carbon nanotubes to detect nitroaromatic compounds. Otherwise, I just detect the variation of the temp.

FIgure2. Recording of data: EnvTemp, EnvHumidity, LeafMeanTemp, LeafMaxTemp, LeafMinTemp.

2021.7.15 — Temp recording experiment

Today I had a super interesting finding by recording different condition (dried & healthy) of leaf of each plant. The data is shown below:

Temp recording(G=healthy leaf, D = unhealthy leaf)

Turns out that dead leaf of Begonia has LOWER temp than healthy one (both aveTemp and maxTemp). And the maxTemp of good one sometimes surpass the envTemp. The other two turns out to be the opposite: the unhealthy leaf of Gardenia and Green Redish has HIGHER temp than healthy one (both aveTemp and maxTemp). The maxTemp of unhealthy one ocassinally surpass the envTemp.

This is an intersting finding that I can use in the product: for Gardenia and Green Redish, to assess and find out the unhealthy leaf, I can analyze the maxTemp of leaf to see whether it is appraching the envTemp. And for Begonia, I plan to analyze the aveTemp to see if it has an obvious difference with envTemp (in this case -2.0 ℃).

2021/07/16 Temp Experiment Data

2021/7/16

Today I do the experiment again and it turns out that only green radish has obvious temprature difference between healthy one and unhealthy one. Probably I should use it for my later product design. 👌

There might be some variables that was not controlled well in the test yesterday. Today I stick the sensor on the table so that the leaf placement angle, leaf location are kept to be the same.

2021/07/17

Next Step is to test the temp variation of manual damge on the leaf. (eg.🤏）The system can also involve stronger vibration feedback if the user is hurting the plants (eg.🤏), cuz the temp’s gonna instantly rise if the leaf is being pinched.

The experiment result (see Figure 3) showed that green radish had an obvious temperature difference between healthy leaf and unhealthy leaf. The unhealthy leaf of green radish has a significantly higher temperature than healthy leaf (both aveTemp, maxTemp and minTemp). The healthy leaf also has a significantly lower temperature than the environment temperature. This is theoretically due to different water status monitored by thermography. This result demonstrates that it is feasible to compare the surface temperature and environment temperature to assess its stress state.

This artifact consists of several sensors and output modules. To collect the thermal imaging of a plant’s leaf, a thermal camera is placed on the finger. In this way, this artifact invites users to physically touch the plants with their own hand to care for the plants intimately. Along with the thermal camera, a temperature sensor is considered on the back of arm to collect the environment temperature. This is because thermal data need some corrections related to the environmental and measurement circumstances in order to achieve a correct interpretation of the data [28]. There is an LCD on the back of the arm to visualize the detected thermal imaging of the plant’s leaf. A vibration motor was designed inside the band on the arm to create stress on the human’s arm according to the stress state of the plant that is being touched. In this way, plants’ stress state is transformed to a similar experience that humans can perceive.

We tested the design by wearing it on the finger and arm and carefully touching each leaf of the green radish. This is the experience we never had with the plant — that we put all our time and attention to the plant in front of us, and that we were concentratedly touching every leaf of the plant. In each moment of touch, we were able to see the surface temperature of the leaf to better understand the leaf’s wellbeing state. Occasionally, we feel the harsh vibration on our arms that causes a certain uncomfortable feeling when we touch some leaves that are assessed to be unhealthy. There was a contradictory feeling of tension (because the vibration is sudden and strong) and a feeling of intimacy (because we related to the plants through the tension) at the same time. These are outward-looking and community-creating experiences for us brought by the digital sensing process.

Intersectionality

VibrateNerve stimulates plant’s skin (receptor) and pain nerve (effector) on human body, thus creating the intimate connection and misplaced senses between human and plants. Human body, plants’ body, plants’ stress state, human’s feeling jointly merges a sensory system, an entangled more-than-human body. Through the encouraged intention to touch the plants, the uncomfortable feeling shared by the plants, we decenter ourselves and look outward to the other beings in the world. We touch the others with our own body, and we feel the pain of the others. As Kimmerer stated “Paying attention to the more-than-human world doesn’t lead only to amazement; it leads also to acknowledgment of pain. Open and attentive, we see and feel equally the beauty and the wounds, the old growth and the clear- cut, the mountain and the mine. Paying attention to suffering sharpens our ability to respond. To be responsible.” Through this artifact, we intend to show an approach that we can explore the ‘arts of noticing’ by encouraging physical engagement and creating sharing sensory experience. In this lens, the intertwined behaviors and senses bind the human body and nonhuman, which picture a scenario of entangled habitation.

#2 GrowthTouch

GrowthTouch was ideated based on the fact that a plant can perform tropisms, which means it responds to environmental changes by altering the texture of stem and leaf parts and growing leaves in specific directions. One of the most common tropisms is phototropism, and it happens when plants move towards sunlight [49]. It is such a performative, dynamic and aesthetic evidence for plants’ being in the world, yet it is also a view that humans can hardly perceive. It inspired us to “integrate a wider definition of the user in HCI as a sensing, moving, and performative body”[13] by enabling humans to perceive the performative aspect of plants. With GrowthTouch, design for entangled habitation and the arts of noticing led to a design to simulate plants’ touch triggered by its actual movement. Through this process, humans ‘notice’ and engage with the existence of plants through the intimate touch of plants.

MotionEyeos interface

2021/07/16

Test through the MotionEyeos on Raspberry pi. 👌 (Have to connect the ethernet, still couldnt work out the wireless connection). I might still use python in original raspi os as it’s more convienient to control the output. 🤔This will be the next step.

Timelapse setup for observing the movement of Begonia.

2021/07/17

Tested through motion detection program with python 3 in Raspi. 👌Connected it with motor and successfully trigger the motor to run when a motion is detected. 👌 Set up a installation for doing a timelapse for the Begonia in my bacolny 👌 (starting from 2021/7/17/22:00, capture one image for every 15 min in 24 h). The goal is to see how fast each plant is moving within one day, so that I can choose the one that moves more obviously to make the final installation.

The Begonia turns out to be moving quite obviously during the daytime due to the change of sunshine.

2021/07/17 Timelapse of Begonia from 6am to 7 pm. The leaf is moving according to sun’s movement.

Next step is to figure out how to remotely control the motor. 🤔

2021/07/18

Figured out how to remotely send data from Raspi to Arduino using NRF24L01. Finished the code. 👌 Waiting for the module to have a physical test. Hoping there will be less uncontrolled bug tmr.

2021/07/20

Worked out the wireless connetion. Successfully control the motor on the Arduino with motion detection on Raspi.

Wireless connection between Raspi (camera motion capture) & Arduino (motor)

For Raspi code, remember to combine the NRF24 code and motion detection together, instead of importing from one to another.

Next step would be controlling multiple motor and design the “skin”.

2021/07/21

Finish controlling multiple motors using PCA9685. Here’s the demo:

Finish controlling multiple motors using PCA9685. Wireless connection between Raspi (camera motion capture) & Arduino (3 motors)

Next step would be designing the skin.

Arduino code:

#include<SPI.h>
#include<RF24.h>
#include "HCPCA9685.h"
#define  I2CAdd 0x40
HCPCA9685 HCPCA9685(I2CAdd);
RF24 radio(9,10);
void setup(void) {
  HCPCA9685.Init(SERVO_MODE);
  
while(!Serial);  
  Serial.begin(9600);
radio.begin();
 radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_MAX);
 radio.setChannel(0x77);
 radio.openWritingPipe(0xF0F0F0F0E1LL);
 
 const uint64_t pipe = 0xE8E8F0F0E1LL;  //0xE8E8F0F0E1LL
 radio.openReadingPipe(1,pipe);
radio.enableDynamicPayloads();
 radio.powerUp();
 radio.startListening();
}
void loop(void) {
 unsigned int Pos;
char receivedMessage[32]={0}; 
 if (radio.available()){
  
  radio.read(receivedMessage, 4);
  String stringMessage(receivedMessage);
  Serial.println(stringMessage);
if(stringMessage == "true" ){ //如果监测到motion，舵机转动
        Serial.println("Motion detected");
        HCPCA9685.Sleep(false);
        for(Pos = 10; Pos < 450; Pos++)
            {
              HCPCA9685.Servo(0, Pos);
              HCPCA9685.Servo(1, Pos);
              HCPCA9685.Servo(2, Pos);
          
              delay(2);
            }
            
            for(Pos = 450; Pos >= 10; Pos--)
            {
              HCPCA9685.Servo(0, Pos);
              HCPCA9685.Servo(1, Pos);
              HCPCA9685.Servo(2, Pos);
          
              delay(2);
            }
            HCPCA9685.Sleep(true);
}
       
    else if (stringMessage == "fals" ){
        Serial.println("No motion");
   }
delay (1000);
}
}

Design sketch of the facial jewelry (left) and the breathe necklace (right).

Motion detection module setup

Testing the artefact by wearing it on the face for half day.

Attentiveness

This artifact explored the arts of noticing by exploring the performative aspect of a plant — that how bodies may act and perform in the world [13]. Though humans are able to notice the growth of a plant by observing the change of the leaf and the blooming of a flower, it is almost impossible for humans to perceive the constant movement of a plant body due to its tiny motion. However, we argue that the constant moving of a body is a powerful and aesthetic aspect of a living life. Within this lens, we intend to explore the more-than-human symbiote by constructing plants’ performative bodies on the human body, thus enabling humans to perceive the constant movement of a plant and gain attentiveness to the nonhuman beings. The movement of a plant, the simulated touch, the embodied performative plant body, the human body, altogether form an entangled system that transform, represent, and create multiple senses. GrowthTouch provides an approach that wearers can use their intuitive, haptic, and emotional capabilities and come to an intensive understanding of how plants are being and living in the world and decenter themselves by having more attentiveness to the nonhuman beings.

#3 Breathe Together

Figure 4: The air bag is designed to be placed on the chest of the wearer, which is the same position of human’s lung.

Carbon dioxide’s warming effects as a greenhouse gas have been recognized for a long time. However, insights into the conditions of the carbon dioxide level in the air around a plant, in which a plant conduct photosynthesis and grow, can also provide valuable information for human about how plants are responding to the environmental conditions. “Plants have a very complex and diverse influence on the climate system” [41]. Caldeira et al. found that the way plants react to carbon dioxide is critical for accurate climate forecasting. This offered many insights for us to explore a more-than-human body in a broader sense — to improve the representation of land plants and build more-than-human body in an effort to care for ecological crisis.

BreathTogether includes two parts: carbon dioxide reading module and wearable breath simulation.

This design is based on the concept of breathing together with plants. In Figure 4, we build a breathing plant organ on human body that represents plants’ photosynthesis effectiveness, which also reveals its wellbeing and provides insights for climate system. Photosynthesis is the process through which plants take carbon dioxide from the air, mix it with water and light, and produce carbohydrates. MH-Z19B NDIR infrared gas module is a common type, small size sensor, using non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) principle to detect the existence of carbon dioxide in the air. BreathTogether is a wearable artifact that physicalizes plant’s breath with the varying size of an airbag by reading the carbon dioxide data from a plant.

Entanglement

Through this lens, we draw human’s attention to nonhuman (in our paper, plants) by building a more-than-human body that create tactile impulses and shared sensation. In a broader sense, we aim to design for noticing that the kind of plant on the surface of our planet and what that plant is doing is very essential in determining our climate. In an effort to do that, we build an entangled breathing system that human is breathing and actually perceiving the real-time breathing of the plants at the same time. While we are breathing in the O2 and breathing out the CO2, contradict things are happening on plants. That is, when we breath out, the air bag becomes bigger, and vice versa. The entanglement stem from the realization that we are exchanging the subjects and co-habituating since the beginning.

2021/07/22

Figure out the technical part: NRF communication, CO2 detection, L298n motor driver (waiting for the motor now).

Collect + send data code:

#include <SPI.h>
#include <nRF24L01.h>
#include <RF24.h>
RF24 radio(9,10);
const byte address[6] = "00001";
#include <MHZ19_uart.h>
const int rx_pin = 4; //Serial rx pin no
const int tx_pin = 5; //Serial tx pin no
MHZ19_uart mhz19;
void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  mhz19.begin(rx_pin, tx_pin);
  mhz19.setAutoCalibration(false);
radio.begin();
 radio.openWritingPipe(address);
 radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_MIN);
 radio.stopListening();
}
void loop() {
  int co2ppm = mhz19.getPPM();
  int temp = mhz19.getTemperature();
Serial.print("co2: "); Serial.println(co2ppm);
  radio.write(&co2ppm,sizeof(co2ppm));  
  delay(1000);
}

Receive+motor code:

#include <SPI.h>
#include <nRF24L01.h>
#include <RF24.h>
RF24 radio(9,10);
#define ENA 6
const byte address[6] = "00001";
int motor1pin1 = 2;
int motor1pin2 = 3;
void setup() {
   Serial.begin(9600);
   pinMode(motor1pin1,OUTPUT);
   pinMode(motor1pin2,OUTPUT);
  
   radio.begin();
   radio.openReadingPipe(0,address);
   radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_MIN);
   radio.startListening();
}
void loop() {
  if(radio.available()){
    int data = 0;
    radio.read(&data,sizeof(data));
//    int duration = map(data,1,2000,1,
    Serial.println(data);
     analogWrite(ENA,125);
     digitalWrite(motor1pin1, HIGH);
     digitalWrite(motor1pin2, LOW);
     delay(1000);
  }
}

DISCUSSION

Based on Light et al. [17] and Liu et al. [20]’s idea of utilize noticing as an approach to decenter the role of human in design, our research set out to design from a more-than-human perspective and investigate noticing as a strategy and as an approach in entanglement HCI. Through our design research of noticing and decentering, we elaborate the wearable artefacts as a method to build entangled habitation with plants. Eventually, we aim to provide inspirations for innovative technological approach that shifts human’s perception positively towards non-human beings and allows human to live entangled with the ecosystem.

1. Being As an Entangled Way of Noticing

We create entangled habitation as a posthuman way of living in a potential future. We build plant-empowered organs on the human body to help us perceive the world in a collaborative way. Through this lens, we experience the world not with our own body, but plant-enacted hybrid senses. In our attempt to build a more-than-human relationship with plants, we realize a need to communicate beyond vision and sound, to explore methods of forming meaning that don’t simply rely on looking at the plants and sensors’ data, but feeling how the plants sense, move and perform in an entangled way. In this case, we create new forms of wearable being to notice plants’ sensorial, embodied behaviors, thus enhancing our performative interactions with the plants. It was the act of touching the plants, feeling the plant’s movement, breath and sensation that enabled us to further understand our embodied and emotional experience of cohabiting with plants. Through this iterative process of making, wearing and feeling, we attempt to build a symbiotic, intertwined, entangled relationship with plants. We see how creating an alternative way of being can be an approach to divert our attention from human to the nonhuman world.

Through designing an entangled habitation in design, we explore multi-sensorial, multi-model interaction experience through a series of provocations. While much design research has been done on sensory wearable projects, some of them focus on designing tools for more-than-human engagement based on human behaviors [30] or translating environmental data into wearable artefacts [4]. Many researchers have also looked into interaction design systems based on creatures, they often focus on the display function of plants [30] and microbes [2,16,25]. Our provocations focus on exploring plants-enacted embodied experiences that include sensing (VibrateNerve), moving (GrowthTouch) and breathing (BreathTogerther) in terms of sensory dimension. We also investigate different models of interaction between human and plants that includes both passive (BreathTogether, GrowthTouch) and proactive (VibrateNerve). Ultimately, we invite plants to play a key role and decenter the human through our multi-sensorial, multi-model provocations.

1. Wearable Technology As An Approach Of Decentering The Human

In our attempt to build a more-than-human body with plants, we see how sensory artifacts mediate our behaviors and mindset towards nonhuman objects. VibrateNerve requires users to touch the plant’s leaves with their fingers and feel the plants’ wellbeing state through vibration. During the process, we proactively, repeatedly touch every single leaf, with our mindset concentrating on the leaf and our nerve feeling the vibration. Before every touch, we were experiencing a short period of tension, worrying a harsh vibration would happen along with the touch. Both the proactive touch, the moment of tension and the feeling of stress were ultimately part of our attentiveness to the plants and ecologies in different ways. GrowthTouch creates embodied subjectivity for plants and builds a strange intimacy between humans and the plants. During the time we were physically, distantly touched by the plants’ actual movement, more cultural and emotional aspects of interaction dominate our experiences with plants. Ultimately, the created intimacy and the emotion constitute an enhanced attention for the nonhuman world. We build our entangled habitation with plants by letting humans constantly feel the plant’s being in the world in plants’ photosynthesis process. The symbiosis in turn improves the representation of plants and refresh the plant-human relationship to care for ecological crises in a broader sense. Through these cases, we see wearable technological artefacts as powerful tools enabling us to perceive and widening our sensory outward towards the nonhuman world.

1. Entangled Habitation for the Future

We attempt to respond to the call of ‘including a wider definition of user in HCI’[13] by perceiving plants as stakeholder in the design interaction system. We see plants as equally sensing, performing, living objects as humans in the world and we build our design based on this argument. Motivated by what Introna stated ‘Humans and things are ‘ontologically inseparable from the start’[11], we see our built more-than-human body as a productive way for HCI to evolve in this constantly changing world. ‘Arts of noticing’ as a method and more-than-human perspective as an approach inspired us to explore the plant-human habitation, and our design research stands as an example for interpreting the theoretical literature into practices. Specifically, we introduce the design system that invites nonhuman objects as users and constructs dynamic symbiote based on humans and plants. While this paper offers one specific way of building a more-than-human body, we would welcome others to draw their own.

1. Next Step

While our provocations construct more-than-human body based on human senses and plants’ living behavior, we see main future work based on our research regarding (1) wearable as an approach for building entangled habitation between human and nonhuman (e.g., plants); (2) wider range of evaluation of our provocations beyond personal experience, addressing people’s subjective experience and cognitive change after wearing the artefacts.

By designing and prototyping the wearable artefacts on the human body, we see potential in how interactive technology mediates and reforms our relationship with plants. As we have mentioned earlier, more-than-human scholars state that humans become more entangled with nonhuman objects such as things, spaces, and materials [11,13]. The key benefit of a more-than-human approach is that it combines the politics and ethics with the bodies [13]. Our project focuses on a specific part of the more-than-human body construction, which is human and plants. We see great potential in how design research helps form the framework of a more-than-human body and serve as both product and evaluation tool for human behavior change.

We used a first-person research methodology in order to capture somatic, embodied, nuanced reflection on plant-humans interaction. It was advocated as a powerful method for developing embodied design [22] as well as a starting point for critical discussion on the design process[24]. During the testing process, we gain vital results of the user’s behavior and cognition change towards a posthuman lifestyle. We see valuable future work in social computing by conducting a wider range of user study. We see our wearable artefacts as a tool to study the potential and opportunity in creating an alternative future. We attempt to gather more data of the influence that these artefacts have on humans’ perceptions.

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