Date of Award

Spring 6-1-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

Department

Landscape Architecture

First Advisor

Larissa Belcic

Second Advisor

Nick DePace

Third Advisor

Suzanne Matthew

Abstract

Using science fiction pop culture and films as a basis to reposition the way that we think about communicating with plants as if they are sentient beings capable of human-like qualities, the process in which I intend to understand communication will be nestled in this fantastical, sci-fi realm of envisioning the world.

By analyzing existing forms of communication between humans, other living entities and themselves, I am challenging existing perspectives in order to propose new speculative processes of bio-based augmentation that can amplify a connection to plants. In order to pursue this exploration, I have chosen a real site in the world that is being affected by a human-caused environmental impact to act as a catalyst to the world that I am envisioning, such as the process of mountaintop removal which has led to the contamination and pollution of many ecological processes within its proximity.

This creative, science fiction speculation becomes an analogy to the human stewardship of our earth, our relationship to the world around us, and a proposition for us to deepen our communion plants as a whole body and spirit experience. If our current ways of interacting with the earth were based more on ‘associative empathy’, then we, as humans, would not engage in operations that are for the sole purpose of human benefit.

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