Messages To a Post Human Earth - Plant Possibilities in Imagined Futures
May Abdalla (Creative Director at Immersive Studio - Anagram) and Monica Gagliano (Senior Research Fellow at the Biological Intelligence Lab, University of Sydney) discuss Monica’s extraordinary work on plant cognition and explore what answers plants may have for us to help solve man-made crises.
Anagram are collaborating with Monica on a new immersive experience Messages to a Post-Human Earth inspired by an essay written by science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. In the essay he muses on the possibility of concealing a message in the DNA of a plant meant for the beings that will encounter Earth after our civilisation has ended. The experience explores not only this message but those that are already in the plants that we have yet to see. They will discuss the challenge of designing an experience that could help us unlearn some assumptions about the plant kingdom and help us come closer to our photosynthesising companions. Messages to a Post-Human Earth asks humans to consider their position as members of a brief and vulnerable species on the planet - a species that is part of an ecosystem that existed long before us, and will surely exist long after we are gone.
Monica Gagliano
Research Associate Professor in evolutionary ecology based at Southern Cross University where she directs of the BI Lab–Biological Intelligence Lab as part of the Diverse Intelligences Initiative of the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
She has pioneered the brand-new research field of plant bioacoustics, for the first time experimentally demonstrating that plants emit their own ‘voices’ and detect and respond to the sounds of their environments. Her work has extended the concept of cognition (including perception, learning processes, memory) in plants. By demonstrating experimentally that learning is not the exclusive province of animals, she has re-ignited the discourse on plant subjectivity and ethical and legal standing. Inspired by encounters with Nature and indigenous elders from around the world, she apply a progressive and holistic approach to science – one that is comfortable engaging at the interface between areas as diverse as ecology, physics, law, anthropology, philosophy, literature, music and the arts, and spirituality. By re-kindling a sense of wonder for this beautiful place we call home, she is helping to create a fresh imaginative ecology of mind that can inspire the emergence of truly innovative solutions to human relations with the world we co-inhabit.
Her latest book is Thus Spoke the Plant (North Atlantic Books, 2018).
May Abdalla
May Abdalla is an immersive experience creator and co-founder of Anagram, an award-winning studio making experiences that uses physical interaction and recently available technologies to bring people intimately into a story.
Her work explores a range of contemporary issues from surveillance to power, fake news to our relationship with mental health. Her latest project The Collider combining immersive theatre and virtual reality, premiered at Tribeca and received Best Immersive Art Award at Sandbox Festival in China.
