Plant(e)tecture

Abstract

More-than-human media architecture is gaining increased attention as a response to the planet's environmental emergency and in turn allowing us to envision a more desirable future compared to tech-utopian smart cities. New types of digital technologies have emerged into the human mindscape, and with that a new potential for bridging human understanding and multispecies geographies. Emphasising the agency of plants, this paper attempts to answer the following research questions: how can twenty-first-century media technologies, such as media architecture, be used to better incorporate plant/flora perspectives? This paper begins by providing a review of multispecies ontology, exploration of plant agency and how media architecture can visualise and amplify plant agency based on Whitehead's Process Philosophy, Mark Hansen's Feed-Forward concept and Feenberg's technical agency framework. Hortum Machina B, terra0, and Elowan are explored as three examples of Plant(e)tecture where the multispecies actors “plants'' are coupled with technologies and analysed for agency and autonomy. Synthesising the three case studies, the paper discusses the role of media architecture in (i) enabling plant agency; (ii) engaging multispecies actors in autonomous decision-making, and; (iii) the creation of technology to amplify the agency of plants in a design process that transcends human sensibilities. The paper closes on the prospect of the multispecies-techno agency framework to enable human designers, makers, decision-makers and thinkers to move beyond human-centric determinism prevalent in media architecture. The framework offers new ways of thinking of the purpose of technical agency in multispecies assemblages.