Encountering Human-Plant Relations: a Discussion of How Interaction Design Can Encourage Human Sensibility to More-than-human Plants

TY - GEN

T1 - Encountering Human-Plant Relations

T2 - 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, DIS 2024

AU - Hansen, Lone Koefoed

AU - Rolighed, Margrete Lodahl

PY - 2024/7/1

Y1 - 2024/7/1

N2 - In this paper we discuss how interaction design experiments and interventions can play a role in sensitising humans to the more-than-human—specifcally to plants and their signifcance to our lifeworld. Our work is rooted in two ideas (1) that deepening the understanding of human-plant relations is important for navigating the multiple planetary crises that we are currently facing, and (2) that interaction design allows for exploring the posthuman ontological model that rejects human exceptionalism and regards all entities as entangled and mutually constitutive. In discussing how design on several levels makes possible more-than-human refections, the paper presents qualitative data gathered from interviews, diary entries, and observations from deploying two of our plant-electronics designs. Through identifying and organising surprises and recurring patterns in how people responded into three types of sensibilities (hermeneutic, existential, and socio-cultural), we discuss what happens when interaction design mediates entanglements between humans, plants, and other more-than-human actors.

AB - In this paper we discuss how interaction design experiments and interventions can play a role in sensitising humans to the more-than-human—specifcally to plants and their signifcance to our lifeworld. Our work is rooted in two ideas (1) that deepening the understanding of human-plant relations is important for navigating the multiple planetary crises that we are currently facing, and (2) that interaction design allows for exploring the posthuman ontological model that rejects human exceptionalism and regards all entities as entangled and mutually constitutive. In discussing how design on several levels makes possible more-than-human refections, the paper presents qualitative data gathered from interviews, diary entries, and observations from deploying two of our plant-electronics designs. Through identifying and organising surprises and recurring patterns in how people responded into three types of sensibilities (hermeneutic, existential, and socio-cultural), we discuss what happens when interaction design mediates entanglements between humans, plants, and other more-than-human actors.

KW - design interventions

KW - interaction design

KW - more-than-human design

KW - sensibilities

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85200342290&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3643834.3661586

DO - 10.1145/3643834.3661586

M3 - Article in proceedings

AN - SCOPUS:85200342290

SP - 1400

EP - 1411

BT - DIS '24:

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

Y2 - 1 July 2024 through 5 July 2024

ER -