Fauxtanical

A Mixed Media Interactive Installation

Dracaena trifasciata (snake plant), artificial snake plant, water, bio-data sensors,

display monitors, gardening supplies, installed speakers, cushion.

Faux (noun) : Made in imitation; artificial. Not genuine; fake or false.

Tanical (suffix) : The study or appreciation of.

Fauxtanical : The study and appreciation of the artificial.

Fauxtanical is an interactive art installation which utilizes physiological data gathered from a real plant, an artificial plant, and a human source to allow for a collaborative interplay between human-machine, non-human, real, and faux - occupying an in-between space between the actual and the virtual. This data is represented via a generative animation appearing on a nearby monitor, while an acousmatic soundscape plays through the cymatic resonance from within a 'liminal boulder' and it's small body of water. In the process, co-occurring feedback loops betwixt both real and faux inquire on the interrelatedness of the entities involved.

Documentation

Technological apparatuses of measurement can only conjecture so far as to deduce the possibility of a type of experience and sensuous capacity within non-humanity. The notion of measurement in itself is anthropocentric, which may devalue 'non-lived' and immeasurable layers of experience. Thus, this project employs a non-representational methodology of 'messy' data collection and visualization to allow an 'imperfect science' to symbolically shed some light on the empirical inadequacies of appreciating non-life.

There is also a limit to human conceptualizations of empathy, especially towards plants and their rendered/artificial counterparts. Fauxtanical hopes to further such conversations by precariously positioning

the human in a playfully-serious contemplation.