I imagine that over the next decade humans will form a kind of symbiosis with the plant kingdom where bioengineered plants change colors to signal the presence of pollutants in the air, land, and waterways.
Rainbows of color in the foliage might reveal the myriad ways we humans have impacted the natural world. They might warn us when a factory is releasing contaminated runoff or emitting hazardous fumes into the air. At home when you water the plants, their leaves might change colors to tell you the concentration of toxic metals or harmful bacteria in the tap. In the city squares, urban gardens might provide living information about local environmental health. They might even help us navigate and point you to your destination with their branches using the same cellular mechanisms that point them to the sun.
I am a professor of interaction design, a field that usually investigates relationships between people and products. My practice, however, focuses on people’s interactions with plants; I create plant technologies or what I call bio-digital hybrids [1]. My designs may seem whimsical and at odds with our current ideas about nature, but I argue that the status quo exists because our relationship with nature has been stymied.
For thousands of years, humans have harnessed biological materials for fabrication, medicine, and agriculture. In India, I grew up seeing and using reed baskets, thatched roofs, grown bridges, seagrass cots, and jute textiles. These materials were culturally specific; they grew near our homes; and we had relationships with them. But since the Industrial Revolution, our biological materials have become alienated from us, no longer intertwined with our daily lives and rituals.
Early in my career, designers like me spoke the phrase “human-centered design” while simultaneously designing for digital environments. Something always seemed wrong with that juxtaposition since so much of human experience and sensation is lost when we cross into the digital realm.
I remember one project where my team and I developed a virtual garden for local communities. When I shared the project with my family back in India, I could sense their bafflement. They reminded me that as a child I would play with the Venus flytrap we had in the house by triggering it to snap its jaw. Memories of dissolving rice paper in water and chasing bubbles came back to me. I realized that all of these tangible experiences meant more to me than anything that ever happened onscreen.
The conversation forced me to reckon with myself. What about humanity were we designing for? My work had migrated to a medium that had no hope of simulating an actual relationship with the living world. And so over time I realigned my career.
Today my work asks, how can technology aid in creating new relationships with the botanical world? Can we expand the palette of what and who plants can sense in their environment, speed their reactions, and devise novel methods to display environmental effects through its flora?
I started to study plants that move: the leaves of the Mimosa pudica, known as the touch-me-not, fold up when you brush them with your fingers; the smaller leaves of the Codariocalyx motorius, the telegraph plant, sweep along an elliptical path to catch the ideal angle of sunlight and signal larger leaves to change their orientation. Darwin called plant movement the “animalness in plants.”
I wanted to show that all plants have an “animalness,” so I created a plant-robot hybrid I call Elowan, which means “good light” in Celtic [2]. Fitted with wheels, Elowan can drive itself towards light, its source of nourishment. I made it from a potted Anthurium andreanum (commonly called a laceleaf) and a base fitted with a microprocessor and motorized wheels. Electrodes from the base connect to Elowan’s stems. When a leaf senses light, its stem floods with calcium. This reaction typically redirects growth toward light, but in Elowan it also raises conductivity levels, which signals the wheels to drive toward the light.
The whimsy of Elowan contrasts with the way people generally relate to plants. Rather than using technology to shape or control the growth of plants to our own desires, as we do in gardens, greenhouses, and farms, this technology relinquishes control to the plant.
More recently, colleagues and I injected a Spathiphyllum (peace lily) plant with tiny fluorescent nanosensors that sit harmlessly in the space between the cells of the leaves. We call the project Argus, meaning ‘guardian’ in Latin. These sensors stop glowing when given impure water containing lead. We envisioned a plant offering warning before you drink your next glass from the tap.
To me biodesign is about symbiosis and flattening of hierarchies. Biodesign can provide frameworks to restore our relationships with the species around us. Prototypes such as Argus and Elowan are a means to open our minds and offer a glimpse into a symbiotic future.
[1] Sareen, Harpreet, Jiefu Zheng, and Pattie Maes. “Cyborg botany: augmented plants as sensors, displays and actuators.” Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2019.
[2] McDermott, Amy. “Science and Culture: Light-seeking mobile houseplants raise big questions about the future of technology.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019. 116.31: 15313-15315.
Cite This Essay
Sareen, Harpreet. “What Biodesign Means to Me.” Biodesigned: Issue 10, 28 February, 2022. Accessed [month, day, year].