Project Florence: A Plant to Human Experience
- Helene Steiner ,
- Paul Johns ,
- Asta Roseway ,
- Chris Quirk ,
- Sidhant Gupta ,
- Jonathan Lester
2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems Pages |
Published by ACM
If plants could talk to us, what would they say? Equally important how might they respond to us if we could converse with them? How might these conversations evolve and expand our ability to better relate with the Natural World? Project Florence is an artistic representation of a Plant-Human Interface Experience that is built on top of a scientific analysis of the plant and its environment. Paired with the ability to receive human input, the plant can return a response, thus promoting a two-way conversational experience. Combining Biology, Natural Language Research, Design, and Engineering? we have created an instantiation of a plant to human interface through the power of language. Project Florence enables people to converse with a plant by translating their text sentiment into a light frequency the plant can recognize and respond to.
©2017
Project Florence
Project Florence is a speculative glimpse into our future, where both our natural and digital worlds could co-exist in harmony through enhanced communication. Combining natural language research, biology, design, and engineering, we have created the first instantiation of a plant to human interface through the power of language. In this system, the user first attempts to communicate with or influence the plant through modulated natural language using a Surface computer. The conversation received from the human is analyzed for sentiment and semantic content using a Natural Language Algorithm. The resulting analysis is interpreted into signals that are used to modulate a light source that projects onto the plant. During this conversational turn, the chemical and electrical reactions from the plant and information about its environment…