New Exhibit Allows You to Experience Plants Communicating
Imagine a world in which we could talk to plants unlike never before!
Hiya!
If you’ve read much of my writing, you know I’m a big fan of plants. About two years ago, I got really into succulents and was fascinated by their propagation abilities. Since then, my collection has grown to include various house plants, a terrarium, and a miniature tree.
Surprise, surprise, I’ve learned a ton about plants and am floored by how remarkable they are. Every time I learn something new, I want to tell everyone I know, so you can imagine how excited I was when I learned about the Polish Greenhouse Silent Disco exhibition, which attempts to translate plant communication.
Plants Communicate?
I’ve written about plants’ remarkable abilities before, and we continue to learn more. Plants are far more attuned to their environment than anyone dreamed possible. They communicate with each other using chemical signals and sound. A plant’s movements aren’t random either, but a response to changes in its surroundings.
But they go further than that. Research shows that plants have a kind of nervous system that communicates distress — meaning plants actually become distressed. That alone would get you laughed out of a room a couple of decades ago. Also, the distress signals plants use are the same signals animals use.
Not to mention, research indicates plants are actually intelligent in their own right and can “make memories, and display their memory recall though learned response. Better yet, they were able to learn quickly – in as little as one day.”
Is your mind blown? Just wait until I tell you about the exhibit.
So What’s This Exhibit?
The Greenhouse Silent Disco exhibit is currently on display until December 11, 2022, at the 23rd Triennale Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Architecture — an international event celebrating design and architecture — held this year in Milan, Italy. This year’s theme is “Unknown Unknowns,” so you know I had to check it out — online at least; I wish I could see it in Milan!
The main goal of this year’s theme is to begin the much-needed conversation about the future design challenges we face with increased global warming and to “contemplate what still remains unknown to us in the modern world.”
The Greenhouse Silent Disco is the creation of several brilliant minds and lots of teamwork. The project was inspired by the research of Professor Hazem Kalaji of the Agriculture and Biology Department at Warsaw University of Life Sciences. It was designed by Barbara Nawrocka and Dominika Wilczyńska of the architecture firm Miastopracownia and curated by Małgorzata Devosges-Cuber and Michał Duda.
Okay, but what actually is the Greenhouse Silent Disco?
Using his research, Professor Kalaji devised a way to monitor plants individually and entire ecosystems. Then Nawrocka and Wilczńska designed a greenhouse with wooden structures inspired by natural fractals with several plants in handmade terracotta pots and reflective glass walls around them. The greenhouse enables direct contact between the plant and human visitors.
The plants react to variables such as someone’s presence and changes in atmospheric conditions or any specific needs they might have. Computer systems with digital sensors monitor and record what every plant “says” and translates it using colored LED lights and sounds.
In an article about the exhibit by Culture.pl, run by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, that helped bring the Greenhouse Silent Disco to life, Prof. Kalaji explained,
“The greenhouse of the future is a disco, where LEDs change from blue to red and white according to the plants' needs: for instance, when it’s cloudy or rainy outside the greenhouse.”
The greenhouse visually displays the constant flux of nature, plants’ growth, and seasonal changes. It allows visitors to experience nature through more senses and even anthropomorphize or empathize with plants, which perfectly ties into Triennale’s theme of Unknown Unknowns.
Specifically, the plants use chlorophyll fluorescence to communicate, which is the remaining light a plant receives that’s not used during photosynthesis. Using this excess energy, and with the help of technology, the plants can communicate their needs in a way humans can understand.
This is a big, big deal because plants are freaking brilliant. They can sense humidity levels and electromagnetic fields, assess gravity, notice vibrations, and communicate with other plant species. The Greenhouse Silent Disco is perhaps the first time they can communicate with us too.
Perspective Shift
It’s a little ironic that technology is advancing to the point of us learning even more about the natural world just as global warming intensifies. Then again, the two are probably more interdependent than I’d like to admit. Regardless, plants are flipping fantastic, and I’m stoked we’re learning more about them.
Like animals, there’s much plants can teach us about our world. They possess capabilities we can only dream of. Imagine a world where we could communicate with our plants beyond our chit-chat during watering sessions (just me?) but could actually know what they need because they’d tell us! Perhaps they could aid us, maybe warn us of atmospheric changes or deliver messages as a community.
How might our societies change if we could speak with plants? Would communication with animals follow? If global warming doesn’t wipe us out, is it possible that 1,000 years from now, we could share our planet with the rest of nature? Not as superiors or dominators but as mediators and partners.
Yeah, okay, I’m probably drifting off into a fantasy land… but wasn’t the idea of plants communicating or possessing any sort of intelligence once a fantasy? I say we shouldn’t keep our impossible dreams quiet. Instead, we should shout them to the world because, who knows, maybe someone will hear it and say, “I have an idea to make that work!”
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