The Archive

The Archive

Note: you may have to move your camera position around a little at the start to orient the camera!

Sengul C., Annika M., and Anna L,'s submission for IDM's FloraFictions – Speculative Human–Plant–Computer Interaction; Part 2 – Co‑Creative FloraFictions Artefact (Group Work)

This is The Archive.

Instructions to move around:

• WASD: to move, and zoom into mouse position
• WASD+SPACE: to move only on X/Z axis, not gaining height/zooming in/out
• Mouse: to move perspective around

Background music: Rain in the forest by folk_acoustic on Pixabay

Voiceover transcript:

Our sketch shows a space in nature where memories of both the natural world and of individuals are held. In this sense, it serves as a form of archive. The space is similar to a forest in the real physical world. The terrain is uneven and wild, with soil on which a variety of grass and plants flourish in various directions, and sections with decay as well. There is also a small river which nourishes the soil, plants and animals while cooling down the memory archive. Upon entering the space, you can see featured in the center: a pedestal-like tree stump. Upon which rests a Venus flytrap-like plant, with purple flowers. 

People come to these flowers in search of the collective past; this may include historic events or their own past memories. People can put their hand into this Venus flytrap-like flower, and it shuts around them to grant them the memories they wished for. Through this experience they would exchange healing, and regenerating energies with the environment.  Carrying the past, the plants hold a vast amount of wisdom; continually getting updated by receiving and storing new memories. In this sense, they exercise a lot of power - granting or withholding memories to or from humans. 

However, this is not a one-sided relationship where humans just take, while plants only give. No. The relationship is balanced, equal, symbiotic. Humans need to care for the plants and leave something for the ecology. Thus, there are long, prickly cacti-like plants. People can prick themselves on their thorns, offering traces of their blood to the plants, the archive and the whole space. This blood is supercharged into the plants and ecology as a whole so that they can, in turn, regenerate and revitalize themselves. Allowing for the flora to continue growing, thriving and holding onto the shared memories – which you can see all around you, along the walls and by the riverbed. This represents a symbiosis between the ecosystem and the human participants, creating a shared intimate space, in which humans and nature become one for a single moment.