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.
Recommended Citation
Canino, Naomi, "Trans-species Communication, Fueled by Efforts of Remediation" (2024). Masters Theses. 1260.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1260
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