On seeding fictions in hybrid spaces — Michelle Lai and John Carrillo

This piece by collective Plant Fictions explain their attempts at introducing new found narratives within the context of physical / digital spaces. Here, they introduce their VR/XR project Phytomorphism, and the process of designing for it.

 

On Seeding Fictions in Hybrid Spaces

by Michelle Lai and John Carrillo

 

“The forest is alive.”
David Kopenawa, The Falling Sky

The intention of our collective, Plant Fictions, is to prototype and seed narratives, through the arts and design, as to materialise how digital technologies can promote human-nonhuman co-existence within our immediate environments. This essay introduces Phytomorphism, an extended reality (XR) that utilises an experience in a physical and virtual reality (VR) environment, inviting participants to journey into the mind of a plant. We have taken inspiration from, and incorporated throughout our design process, psychoactive plants, due to their ability to alter one’s perceptual experience, blurring the boundaries between humans and nature and thereby inducing a sense of oneness with others. Such emotions have been shown to diminish the self, improving prosocial helping behavior.¹ The paper summarises some of the intentions, processes, and insights learnt from six months of materialising human-plant narratives using digital technologies.² Here, we share what implications it may hold for designing hybrid spaces for engaging people with nature and altering states of consciousness in relation to digital geographies.

 

What do you think of when you imagine a plant? The Journey

Part of Phytomorphism involves asking the questions: in what reality and timeframes would human-plant dialogues become possible? Participants are first guided into a physical installation, invited to sit before putting on the VR headset and headphones. The narrative then begins. A narrator invites the participant to question commonly held perceptions of what plants are (Figure 1). The participant is then drawn into perceiving plants as subjective beings possessing consciousness and intelligence. We believe that this initial sequence can initiate the detachment of the conscious self from the external world. Neuroscientist Anil Seth alludes to the idea that reality, which we tend to think of as a world we are embedded in, is a reflection of ongoing internal processes.³

The participant is then brought within the VR, to a natural setting, and serenaded by bird song and the rustling of leaves. The scene gradually begins to morph and disintegrate before the participant just as they are adjusting to their new environment. The separation of an external and internal world begins to blur as abstract visual patterns dominate, and an accompanying audio storyline begins to play in the background.

Figure 1: Phytomorphism Installation, Microtuin, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. July 2022.
Photo Credit: Plant Fictions

 The participant is then brought into a world of chaos, where colour, shape, form, and sound are in constant motion (Figure 3, 4). These visual and auditory patterns heighten brain activity and stimulate the development of new neural networks.⁴ This stimulation triggers the brain into an altered brain wave state of relaxation, with theta waves as the dominant brain activity. This is the same brain state achieved through meditation, and associated with processes linked with higher cognitive functions such as memory and spatial navigation.⁵ Hereby, associated imagery around ‘plant consciousness’ mimics effects of psychedelic experiences. Through the VR design, we aimed to induce a sense of awe, an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli. Inductions of awe have been shown in studies to diminish the self, enhance a sense of unity with other beings, and also prosocial helping behavior and emotions, such as generosity and ethical decision-making.¹ Through this experience, we have made it a design choice for participants to rest after the experience to allow themselves a smooth transition back to their waking state of mind.

Figure 2: Phytomorphism Installation, Front View, Microtuin, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. July 2022.
Photo Credit: Plant Fictions

 

On Phytomorphism, the context

A portmanteau of the words for ‘plant’ (fytó, φυτό) and ‘form’ (morphē, μορφή) in Greek, Phytomorphism illustrates the psychological process in which humans recognise themselves as evolutionary descendants of plants; as emerging from plant matter. During the digital immersive experience, the participants undergo the process of morphing into a plant, with a narrative we designed to cultivate and encourage more convivial relations between plants and humans, or a sense of unity. Phytomorphism, with VR, draws on the psychological impact colour and light have on humans, to create an immersive experience into visual environments beyond the perceived physical self.⁶ Utilising a computer generated 3D visual environment, the simulation is composed of a collage of abstract audio-visual clips, interspersed with footage of the natural environment to introduce speculative environments where plant-human communication may occur.⁷ It guides participants into a multi-sensory narrative; therein XR/VR is deployed as an engaging tool that allows for self-directed, compelling storytelling that can encourage convivial more-than-human encounters.⁸ The first iteration stands at 8 minutes, a single-user experience with a 180-mediated visualisation of space, which we have designed in combination with an accompanying physical installation (Figure 2).

 

VR in Digital Ecologies

VR technology allows designers to convincingly alter how space and time are perceived and experienced by our participants.⁹ Using the process of digitisation, we are able to experiment with the blurring of boundaries between reality and fiction, actual and digital space. Such designed encounters take place within the digital realm, where nature is encountered. This has implications in the realm of entertainment, but also has the potential to create therapeutic value.¹⁰ We hope that the process of Phytomorphism can translate into improving human-plant relations in the ‘real world’, and overall well being. The cultivation of affect and care (or, attaining vegetal ethics) draws humans into shifting their attitudes towards plant life, towards one of a gentler ecological impact on the natural environment.² This is as opposed to where the disastrous implications are keenly felt in the fields of (industrial and plantation) agriculture.

Phytomorphism is thus positioned at the intersection of critical plant studies, digital ecologies, and arguably, psychedelic geography, while drawing heavily from the field of VR-assisted psychotherapy, notably within psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. The use of VR-assisted therapy has been explored in medical settings, notably for patients with diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to its immersive nature.¹¹ VR thus presents an alternative tool that can induce altered states within psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, owing to the stigmatisation and penalisation of psychedelics in many countries at the time of writing, and an option for patients who do not want to consume psychedelics. At present, VR development in this field is still in a stage of infancy, but holds potential for the treatment of trauma and anxiety related disorders.¹² 

Phytomorphism is founded on the idea that plants possess forms of intelligence. Specifically, we explore how humans can dialogue with this intelligence, in turn expanding our sense of interconnectedness and consciousness. Equally, one might also recognise the various forms of intelligence plants possess, and thereby, recognise the limits humans have for comprehending the intelligence of diverse nonhuman others.¹³ Lawrence introduces plant consciousness via the idea that the conceptual boundaries between humans, nonhuman animals, and plants are questionable. The feeling of awe and sense of unity that comes with blurring boundaries, which can also be induced by psychedelics or other consciousness-altering activities such as meditation or VR, holds the potential to connect people with nature and to encourage them to foster more convivial human-nature relations.

In relation to psychoactive plants, N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a potent hallucinogen present in Ayahuasca, a plant-based medicinal brew used in various indigenous communities in South America. It is known to immerse participants into vivid mental-scapes or alternative universes, induce changes in conscious perception over a short duration of time (10-20 minutes) leading to reducing depression, suicide, and enhancing neuroplasticity.¹⁴ In assembling Phytomorphism, we had utilised machine learning algorithms including Deep Dream to generate imagery and videos based on text or visual prompts. While originally invented by engineers to explore patterns visualised by neural networks, the algorithm eventually became a tool popular in the creation of dream-like images, as they are reminiscent of psychedelic experiences. Researcher Keisuke Suzuki’s ‘Hallucination Machine’ is also a VR technology that utilises artificial intelligence to produce visual effects, in which Suzuki established that VR could produce immersive content that are qualitatively comparable to those of psychedelic drugs.¹⁵

In making a case for plant ethics, and focusing on plant medicine, we recognise as much that these trajectories are founded on Indigenous cosmologies and plant philosophies as well as experiences of medicinal plant hallucinogen usage in these cultures.¹⁶ For instance, there has been much negative and unwanted attention given to Indigenous communities owing narcotourism largely driven by western tourists. In the case of the Amazon, it has led to fears about the shortage of plants used in ayahuasca, and proposals around ayahuasca plantations as a remedy.¹⁷ Thus, in the design process, we have consciously sought to avoid visual and audio references to these cultures, to minimise opportunities for misrepresentation, choosing to focus on enhancing participant self-transcendent experiences (STEs) – defined as the mental state in which positive emotions such as the feeling of oneness with others is being attained.

Due to its immersive nature, this technological medium, we believe, plays with the perception of time within VR, allowing us to both speed up and slow down time, while generating emotions of space expansion and contraction, among our participants.¹⁸ In this approach of using digital technologies, where participants are prompted towards altered states of consciousness, we find that they are more open to connecting with plants as beings, where participants responded being anxious prior to VR simulation, and “…after [the experience] I felt at ease, the anxiety disappeared.” Or, recognising the interconnections between beings; “…I couldn’t tell whether I was plant, or human.” Participants recounted experiencing a sense of awe and being induced into a state of relaxation: “I was in a state of awe, I can’t believe what I just experienced. I don’t even know how to describe… I’m speechless”; “I felt my heart rate rise during the experience, but I felt at ease at the same time.” The range of positive responses elicited revealed a sense of connectedness, with regards to XR as an effective means of inducing STEs.

 

Figure 3, 4: Speeding Up/ Slowing Down, Screenshots from Phytomorphism.
Image Credits: Plant Fictions

 

On Planting Fictions

The project invites participants to undergo the process of Phytomorphism, through which the boundaries between human and plant begin to dissolve, with the premise of expanding human-plant consciousness.We have explored XR as a method and a form of hybrid space to allow these digital encounters around affect between human-nonhuman relations to spill over into prosocial human-plant behavior in the ‘real world’. There remains plenty of room in the area of VR/XR to exercise creativity and multi-sensory immersive storytelling.¹⁹ Heightening the degree of immersion could include increasing the level of engagement of participants by immersing them in various viewpoints or character roles, and enhancing technical details (i.e. built in headphones, wireless tech, 360 visualisation and audio – spatialisation, haptic sensors, etc.), as measured by qualitative debriefs, in combination with facial and emotional arousal.²⁰ At the time of writing we are in the process of developing the second iteration of Phytomorphism, seeking to evoke imagination and immersion via narrative design. Taking in the guided debriefs, we have since incorporated them to deepen the dialogue and expand empathy between humans and other species.

With the second iteration, we seek to expand the definitions of human-non human relations to include a broader range of entities that constitute the “more-than-human agents, improve technical detailing that supports immersion, and with storytelling, recomposing narrative content and rearranging sequences and design processes to provoke various emotional responses.  It is important to state, that technology is meant to augment the experience, while narrative remains the dominant force for dynamic engagements with the experience. Stories are understood as crucial to our understanding of place and meaning – making. It is an age-old art form: by engaging the range of stories we could design, we allow the proliferation of narratives, shaping our societies and informing our collective sense of self.

  

References

1. Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015). Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 883–899. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000018
2. Turnbull, J, Searle, A., H. Davies, O, Dodsworth, J., Chasseray-Peraldi, P. von Essen, E. and Anderson-Elliott, H. Digital ecologies: Materialities, encounters, governance. Progress in Environmental Geography. https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687221145698
3. Seth, Anil (2021). Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Penguin Publishing Group.
4. Michael M Schartner, Christopher Timmermann, Neural network models for DMT-induced visual hallucinations, Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2020, Issue 1, 2020, niaa024, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaa024
5. Lee Darrin J., Kulubya Edwin, Goldin Philippe, Goodarzi Amir, Girgis Fady. (2018). Review of the Neural Oscillations Underlying Meditation. Frontiers in Neuroscience (12). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00178; Honghui Zhang, Joshua Jacobs. Traveling Theta Waves in the Human Hippocampus Journal of Neuroscience 9 September 2015, 35 (36) 12477-12487; DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5102-14.2015
6. Studies have shown that participant moods improved when lighting was experienced at optimal levels (not too bright or too dark). This also included ideal color design in any given indoor environment.Küller R, Ballal S, Laike T, Mikellides B, Tonello G. The impact of light and colour on psychological mood: a cross-cultural study of indoor work environments. Ergonomics. 2006 Nov 15;49(14):1496-507. doi: 10.1080/00140130600858142. PMID: 17050390.
7. Bos, D. (2021). Geography and virtual reality. Geography Compass, e12590. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12590
8. Or immersive story-telling, the degre to which computer displays could deliver an inclusive, extensive, surrounding and vivid illusion of the designed world(s), towards a human participant. Gröppel-Wegener, A., & Kidd, J. (2019). Critical Encounters with Immersive Storytelling (1st ed.). Routledge, pp.10. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429055409
9. In critical plant studies or ‘vegetal geographies’, focusing on (human) bodily attunements to plants is a means by which plant agency arises between bodies — relating to vegetal time.
10. Aday, J., C. Davoli, C. & K. Bloesch, E. (2020). Psychedelics and virtual reality: parallels and applications. Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, 10, pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1177/3045125320948356.
11. A VR-exposure treatment, Multi-Modal Motion-Assisted Memory Desensitization and Reconsolidation (3MDR) has been developed for use amongst war veterans, to alleviate their symptoms and understand root causes, with research from Dr Eric Vermetten from Leiden University contributing to novel approaches in trauma related treatments. Kothgassner, O. D., Goreis, A., Kafka, J. X., Van Eickels, R. L., Plener, P. L., & Felnhofer, A. (2019). Virtual reality exposure therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): a meta-analysis. European journal of psychotraumatology, 10(1), 1654782. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2019.1654782
12. As a side, VR presents an alternative to the restriction of recreational and therapeutic psychedelic use in many countries, as well as an alternative to sterile environments (i.e. hospitals and laboratories) where clinical trials are being tested in. Sangwon Jung, Oğuz ‘Oz’ Buruk, and Juho Hamari. 2022. Psychedelic VR Experience: An Exploratory Study on Cosmic Flow. In 25th International Academic Mindtrek conference (Academic Mindtrek 2022), November 16–18, 2022, Tampere, Finland. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 8 pages. https://doi.org/ 10.1145/3569219.3569391
13. Anna Lawrence suggests that in attuning to plants through observation, one may fundamentally appreciate their ‘strangeness’. Lawrence AM (2021). Listening to plants: Conversations between critical plant studies and vegetal geography. Progress in Human Geography. Vol 46 (2). Pp. 629 – 651. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325211062167
14. Maja Kohek, Genís Ona, Michiel van Elk, Rafael Guimarães Dos Santos, Jaime E. C. Hallak, Miguel Ángel Alcázar-Córcoles & José Carlos Bouso (2022): Ayahuasca and Public Health II: Health Status in a Large Sample of Ayahuasca-Ceremony Participants in the Netherlands, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, DOI: 10.1080/02791072.2022.2077155
15. One such tool, the Hallucination Machine, combines deep convolutional neural networks and footage of nature, with VR. The tool aimed to induce visual phenomenology similar to classical psychedelics. Suzuki, K., Roseboom, W., Schwartzman, D.J. et al. A Deep-Dream Virtual Reality Platform for Studying Altered Perceptual Phenomenology. Sci Rep 7, 15982 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16316-2
16. Michael M Schartner, Christopher Timmermann, Neural network models for DMT-induced visual hallucinations, Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2020, Issue 1, 2020, niaa024, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaa024
17. Turnbull, J. and Malcolm, A. Mushrooms, Modern Therapeutics and the Psychedelic Renaissance. Bluesci, 14 May 2020. URL: https://www.bluesci.co.uk/posts/psychedelic-renaissance#5
18. While this paper suggests that lab-induced awe does not affect implicit and explicit time perception, we propose via creative dialogues, as ways to stronger feelings of awe, and hence, affecting time perception on participants. van Elk M, Rotteveel M. Experimentally induced awe does not affect implicit and explicit time perception. Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Jun; 82(3):926-937. doi: 10.3758/s13414-019-01924-z.
19. It could be broadly categrosed into four main types of immersion; spatial (-technical) and emotional immersion, sensorial and embodied dimensions. Immersive storytelling has been used to good effect towards enhancing museum accessibility, where artefacts are brought to life via touch screens, holograms: the museum exists in the digital, and physical. This redefines the roles of visitors, who assume an active role by co-creating exhibitions via their engagements with exhibition content. Such design introduces play, interactivity, and education.Gröppel-Wegener, A., & Kidd, J. (2019). Critical Encounters with Immersive Storytelling (1st ed.). Routledge, pp 104. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429055409
20. Hardie, P., Darley, A., Carroll, L. et al. Nursing & Midwifery students’ experience of immersive virtual reality storytelling: an evaluative study. BMC Nurs 19, 78 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-00471-5