Post(non)human gardens

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2 This is a story about touching a tree with sound. It is an attempt not only to hear the tree but to interact with it. A living tree in its natural habitat transmits artificially created sound waves. This is the impression about being near to an emitting tree and its resonance. The sounds used in this work were recorded with a contact audio speaker and a contact microphone.

3 Two differently trained StyleGAN-networks are trying to replicate a choreographic performance recorded in the Tavrichesky Garden (St. Petersburg). The network remembers what it considers essential. Because the network has no life experience, its attention looks random for us. Of course, StyleGAN is designed not for remembering. And using technologies for other purposes is highly speculative. But we also use evolution’s results for new goals in new conditions.

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LINK TO THE WORK: https://clck.ru/QmKUh

Plant sexuality is fluid because the plant seeks to survive. Human sexuality is fluid because man seeks to learn and satisfy. People are used to the sexual fluidity of plants, but deny their own. The human desire to learn and satisfy allows vegetable porn to be. The dichotomy of the natural and cultural is illusory — the so called natureculture allows plant porn to be.

Vegetal porn manifesto

part 1: plant sexuality.

Plant sexuality is fluid because the plant seeks to survive. The plant can change sex in order to adapt to the environment. To perform fertilization, plants attract others: wind, water, animals.

part 2: human sexuality.

Human sexuality is fluid because man seeks to learn and satisfy. A person can change gender in order to adapt to himself. To perform a sexual act, people attract others.

part 3: illusory.

People are used to the sexual fluidity of plants, but deny their own. The human desire to learn and satisfy allows vegetable porn to be. The dichotomy of the natural and cultural is illusory — the so-called natureculture allows plant porn to be.

part 4: vegetal porn.

Do not have sex with trees, because a tree may not want to have sex with you, and you can damage it. Having sex with a tree, you actually have sex with yourself and exploit a foreign organism as a tool. Be a voyeur, watch vegetal porn. Do not be afraid to look at how plants fertilize each other — plants don’t mind you watching them. Be a voyeur, watch vegetal porn.

5 Trees are my friends because I´m a tree-hugger. They´re all the same, but there´s a little more to them than meets the eye. How do you think who might have said these words? A human being, an insect, maybe moss? This text was generated by Generative pre-trained Transformer trained on modern poetry, news text, classical European literature, popular scientific lectures. I asked The Transformer to generate text that could be said by non- human about a tree. And I was surprised when I got the results. I planned that my project will be about trees and plants. However, it turned out to be about humans. All generated texts are anthropocentric. Although I still believe that it is possible to see a forest, not a man.

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LINK TO THE WORK: https://clck.ru/QszQG

The Fruits of Consciousness The Fruits of Consciousness Digital- online The Fruits of consciousness is a virtual installation based on the theories of sight, knowledge, and consciousness fundamentally inspired by the scientific literature of Lynne A. Isbell regarding the connection and coevolution between the serpent, human, the fruit, and the tree in relation to our biological history.

7 This artwork is an artistic ironical representation of anthropocentrism cutting through our culture. Creating the illusion of creatures with human-like features we want to draw attention to that misunderstanding. If humanization of other species continues to be the only way to make people think not only for themselves there is no way to posthuman future for us.Thus, using a neural network trained to read lips, we analyzed numerous videos of blossoming flowers. In order to understand what the plants are talking about, thinking that we do not hear them.

8 The media-performance Flower guides the viewer through the scenario which is based on the theory of “7 stages of falling in love”. During the performance each stage is described through the representation of flowers in media and is paralleled with the stages of the development of technology. The history of technology is visualised with the help of images of flowers and is shown as the history of feeling.

The installation “Flower”draws from the well-known statement — “Media is the message” — and proposes to view media from the point of its sensibility – shame, selfhood, identity, embodiment, and corporeality. It is no secret that technology has its own language, view, corporeality, and choreography. In the series of videos presented in the installation, the history of visual media is compared and paralleled with the history of the representation of flowers in the Hollywood and Soviet movies, TV series, Youtube videos, stories and other visual media. The screens describe the sense that the lyrical hero experiences at each stage — size, distance, and medium gradually grow, get closer and increase the degree of intimacy. The ratio does not contradict the sensible and emotional components, and the human interferes and merges with the technological. Screens do not only broadcast, but also create and conceal the secret — who or what is the object of love in the story?

The video uses the music “Confession of Love” by Alfred Schnittke Description of the stages are taken from the article: https://www.psychologies.ru/articles/7-stadiy-vlyublennosti/

1. INCEPTION

Used video: (24 Mar 1905) BIRTH OF A FLOWER – FIRST KINEMACOLOUR FILM

Inception is the moment at which a certain someone begins to take on a whole new meaning in your life. It might be someone you have known for years or someone you met just hours ago. Either way, you begin to focus intently on that person — a trait known as salience to scientists.

Congratulations! Whether you meant to or not, you have begun the first stage in the process of falling in love.

2. INTRUSIVE THINKING

Used frames and screenshots from the films: "Pretty Woman" (1990), "Office Romance" (1977), Twilight (2008), "White Oleander" (2002), “Vertigo” (1958), "The Cranes Are Flying"(1957).

The next stage occurs when thoughts of your love begin to intrude into your mind. You replay snippets of conversation, recall exactly what he was wearing one night, or think fondly of her smile. You wonder what he would think of the book you are reading, or what her advice on your problem with your boss might be. Every meeting with your beloved, whether planned or happenstance, becomes a weighty event worthy of ongoing review.

In the beginning, these intrusive thoughts come only occasionally. As you move further into this stage, though, they become obsessive. In fact, people tend to spend 85 to 100 percent of their time thinking of the person with whom they are falling in love. In most cases, real life goes on as normal, with the thoughts forming a pleasant backdrop to the tasks of daily living.

Sometimes, though, people in this stage become distracted and have trouble focusing on work or school.

3. CRYSTALLIZATION

Used videos: 4Flower Animation Cinema 4d & After Effect (Free project)

CINEMA 4D tutorial- Building flowers with cloners – lynda.com

Creating a Flower-like Structure in Cinema 4D

Those in love are sometimes said to idealize their beloved, but science shows that this is incorrect. Instead, the third stage of falling in love is known as crystallization. This is when you begin to develop a clear picture of not only your love’s strengths but also his faults. Rather than an ethereal figure, your beloved is becoming a whole, real person in your mind.

Still, despite knowing her faults, there is a tendency to dismiss them or even view them as charming quirks.

4. CRAVING, HOPE AND UNCERTAINTY

Used videos: HOW I LOVE YOU – (Lyrics)

My Declaration of Love to You

Roses flower love

EYES ON ME – (Faye Wong / Lyrics)

МУЗЫКА МОЕЙ ДУШИ/НЕЖНОЕ ПРИЗНАНИЕ В ЛЮБВИ/ЛЮБИМОМУ МУЖЧИНЕ/Я ТЕБЯ ОЧЕНЬ ЛЮБЛЮ

Craving, hope, and uncertainty go hand in hand with crystallization. Now that you have a clear picture of who your beloved is, you are overcome with the desire for a relationship.

Everything that happens between you becomes fraught with emotional meaning — the slightest positive overture becomes proof that your love is returned, while the tiniest rebuff becomes grounds for despair.

Separation anxiety and the determination to overcome any obstacles to your love are part of this phase.

5. HYPOMANIA

Used videos: How to make Buttercream Flowers on cupcakes – Part 1 – Cupcake Bouquet

21 PRETTY FLOWER IDEAS

Simple Carrot Flower Carving Garnish – Art Of Vegetable Carving Designs

How to Make Buttercream Flowers

Впечатляющие цветы из огурцов и цветы из фиолетовой капусты

At some point, you will likely start to experience what scientists refer to as hypomania. This is the rush of energy that makes it feel like you need little food or sleep.

However, it also tends to come out in such nervous reactions as flushing, trembling, physical awkwardness, stuttering, sweating, and a racing or pounding heartbeat.

6. JEALOUSY AND INTENSE MOTIVATION

Used videos: stories “Flower” from natalia.tixo

Those who have advanced down the path of falling in love tend to experience a strong motivation to win over their love interest. Irrational jealousy and behaviors — known as "mate guarding" and designed to warn other potential partners away from your beloved — are common during this stage.

The fear of rejection and an overwhelming sense of longing also tend to appear at this time.

7. HELPLESSNESS

At some point, your intense feelings will likely give way to a sense of helplessness. You may at first feel despondent, but as the obsessiveness starts to subside, you might wonder why you ever behaved so irrationally.

At this point, you may still very much want a relationship, but you begin to resign yourself to the notion that what will be will be. Pragmatism and logic gradually take the reins. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, you move on.

9 The ecocide of all forest ecosystems occurs every year in the form of wildfires, contamination and massive deforestation. Lately the situation has reached its limits, which means that trees in different parts of the world began to demonstrate spontaneously. Approximately a few hundred trees near Saint-Petersburg went to a rally in relation to the latest political events. Trees endeavour to defend their right to exist.

10 The Coordinates project studies artificial spaces created by humans: parks as well as virtual 3D spaces. Based on the concept…

11 В течение летнего сезона Сергей Филатов регулярно проводил полевые записи на различные микрофоны в окрестностях Санкт-Петербурга. Утренние песнопения птиц, водопады,…

12 “Finally, we will speak of the haptic whenever there is no longer a strict subordination in either direction, either a relaxed subordination or a virtual connection, but when sight discovers in itself a specific function of touch that is uniquely its own, distinct from its optical function”.

— G. Deleuze. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation

Entering into interaction with the world, humans use light in the usual way to clarify for themselves other forms of existence – procedural, variable systems formed by continuous interspecies communication. Clarity is an anthropocentric weapon against the alienness of nonhuman systems, a way to filter a dark heterogeneous environment through a language, enclose it in the framework of rational terminology, reduce a complex set of relationships to another tool in hands of a human.

Sound artist: Fragile Hex

Construction consultant: Bulat Shakirov

13 Artist and science fiction writer Anastasya Kizilova’s piece deals with questions of bioethics and digital colonization. It paints a picture of a future where a centralized process of plant cyborgization is underway, thanks to technology. In it, plant cyborgs gain the ability to communicate and pass through various stages of social integration: colonization, resistance, and liberation, culminating in their becoming full members of society.