Living with your own ideas
Prototyping from 1 perspective
Sometimes I get impressed how much we are egocentric beings, just fighting for our existing.
Living with the ideology of; if it is not useful or does not give benefits, it is not worth it to take care.
Not only with the earth, also with the behaviour, actions and movements of humanity.
The importance falls on the purpose of usability instead of morality or ethics.
Since we were born until your death, you are alone.
And cause that person individualizing each other benefit the state-imposed control, contributing with the catastrophe of involving the world in our destruction.
So, flowing in this exploitative system, just makes us compare between us and forget about different realities or feelings that are flowing with us.
That psychological movement just makes us collaborate with the system. Makes me question; which energies we have when we work together? Which synergy? How we can help each other with different been? ... But all of them are a generative question, nothing personal.
I do not have problems with relationships with people. I am always mad and sad, but for the system not for the persons, even knowing the people makes the society.
But I have a hate love relationship with the plants. I am allergic to some plants. Instead of giving me Oxygen, they give me poison. As Humans been for the rest of the planet.
So can i correlate my existing with other's existing and breaking that trust issues with the plants. And not just respect them, love them.
Which energy flows between a plant and me?
So for 1 day I spent living with a mint plant.
Diary
04/11/2021
9:00 The plant does not give me allergy, so I can live with it.
10:30 I start recording in my house, with my sister and my dog. I do not interact with the plant that much. It is like an object more.
11:00 We move with my dog. She just smells it. I am trying to move with the pant close to me, it feels otherwise far away.
11:30 I have tried to imitate the plant, as if my hands were its leaves, and it will try to catch the sunlight. If I close the fingers of my hand, it keeps the heat in more. I have also noticed that the plant only emits a minty smell when you touch it (it feels in danger).
I wonder why the plant will follow this hierarchy in its shape. Is it to capture more energy? Is it to protect the small new leaves and help it grow?
12:30 I have started cooking. I act as if the plant is just another object if I don't have it on me. Every time I am on my mobile phone, I feel bad that I am not paying attention to the plant but to a machine that is not alive.
13:15 We are going to the beach with the bike. I am excited to see how the plant is with me in the beach.
13:30 We had some technical problems, the bike fell to the ground, with the plant. The camera has been disassembled, and I can't put it back together again. I will have to change the way I record.
14:10 We have arrived at the beach. On the way, some people have been staring and laughing at the plant. I guess because of its movements due to the speed. We stopped when we crossed the road because of the contradiction of the pollution. I am happy.
14:30 I have started to eat. I've eaten an egg, and I've put the shell on the plant because it's good for them. So in the end we both ate together. I am happy to have a plant next to me, I have started to talk to her more. But I feel uncomfortable with the camera.
15:00 We have the class now. It's hailing in Gava and I can't go back with the bike. I know the rain will be good for the plant, but not for me, as I have been ill this week. I don't have much battery on my mobile either. Furthermore, I don't know what to do.
15:30 In the end I stayed on the beach so that I could follow the class better. But it's very late, I have a meeting in 20 minutes and I won't have time to get there, and my mobile doesn't have any battery left. I'm going to start heading home as fast as I can.
16:10 After making the meeting and not arriving on time. I am calm.
17:00 I am going with a friend to drink a coffee. It is raining a lot
19:00 Night has fallen. We went to have coffee on the terrace so that the plant could be in the rain, and we could be out of the rain. She was almost run over by a police car. It seems that everybody is in a good mood for a plant.
20:00 I decided to go to the cinema to watch a movie with my friends. Now we are going to take the bus to Barcelona.
20:45 We have arrived at the cinema, we are going to stay in the bar and have a few beers and a bite to eat before the film. Everybody loves the plant and talks to it.
21:45 The film, Titane, is about to start.
23:35 The movie was super weird, but it was nice to be with my friends and the plant. Although I think it got a bit stale after so much movement. We are going to take the last train.
00:35 We just got home, I'm exhausted. I'm going straight to sleep near the plant.
Observation
After experiencing the staging of living with a plant, I have realized how selfish I am. It is hard to superimpose a living being that cannot fight for its own well-being or needs on mine. I have been able to see that this relationship of power between human beings and nature is present in my daily life, even without malicious intent.
For my part, as the day progressed, I increasingly mediated my movements and actions in front of the plant. Even so, I always put my needs before its needs. I suppose, in part, because it was me who had to move it and therefore, it was me who possessed that power of choice. One could ask the Plant how she felt, to fully know all the mistakes I made.
After all, I noticed that although it was more complicated for me to do things, as I had to think in two, the synergy that flowed between me and the plant allowed me to have a much happier and therefore more affective attitude and to be more efficient. I would love to hear the Plant comments.
Reflection
Study Boundaries/limits
During the whole day that I was living with the plant, I was confronted with different conflicts. The first one was that I saw it as an object and not as a living being. The second was that I had to choose between getting wet or not, which is beneficial for it. The third was that I had to start thinking not only about my movements and what I wanted, but also about her. And the fourth conflict was the camera itself, the fact of having something watching me limited me in being myself.
Therefore, the limits I found were basically between my health and wellbeing, which I selected myself. I explored the limit that, as a person, I assume to be innate, the limit of power imposed by and for others. The power of control and choice.
Authenticity
Like the world itself, it is improvised. I personally am very volatile and changeable, what I mean is that you never know how I am going to react to situations. As happened with the plant, until my camera broke, I couldn't interact well with it. From my point of view, I find it very interesting that what intimidates me is not the plant but the camera. As an act of violence and not freedom or privacy. Something that for me the plant represents the opposite.
Plausibility or scholarship
No longer just talking about energy and the societal need to create sustainable and plausible energy for mankind. But talking about the relationship of coexistence between nature and humanity.
Criticality
The house I built for the plant to keep it static and protect it from my movements, as well as to be able to film easily, was a good idea to facilitate filming and transport. Although after the bike fell off and the camera stand broke, everything flowed better. Recording is essential to show the work being done, but personally it was an emotional limit.
Although the purpose of the experiment paid off, I would like to explore the long-term results. What the outcome of living with a plant and myself would be like. Finding out if it would lead to its death and/or if it would help me to improve my mood.
Self-revealing communication
During all the conflicts I had during the day, the basis of all of them was characterized by power. Perhaps this is a very Focauldian conclusion. But it is the turning point I found in myself and the plant. I had a power that it did not possess, to move with total freedom. It should be made clear that although we also have the power to communicate, I like to think that it's not that plants don't communicate, it's that we don't understand them.
In understanding that power relationship, I also understand that there is a responsibility to act and to be aware. And to see clearly in my position that I lack a lot of personal work. I believe that even though I am almost always close to nature, civilization has made me distance myself from it, and therefore I don't know how to interact with it, always respecting it.
Ethnographic material with confessional content
Working with a plant all day long not only helps me to appreciate everything around me but gives me a different point of view. Everything I think I know about my relationships with living things or objects is just a tidbit until I squeeze them, and then I realize how toxic I am to everything. So much post-punk position of my persona. But all this work gives me a new point of view to my project and the relations to have with everything I do and around me. A healthier and more cooperative understanding.
Generalizability
As a person, everyone should do this project just because it will show them all the toxic relationship we have implemented in our behaviours.