Neuroart Exposition
@whatsnextforearth
Technology Design
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Human beings are rooted with imaginative processes
Mental virtualizations combine yearnings and projections of emotions, feelings, predictions, hallucinations and passions.
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Druidism in modern tales has stereotyped representations as
Mages who control nature
They have ability to transform themselves into animals
And
Are connected with a collective
intelligence shared between all living beings and their ecosystems.
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Technodruid is a neurotechnology design influenced by silkpunk and solarpunk movements, an exercise to conceive the druid's fantasy and materialize it through technology bringing transcendence to human beings in the way they perceive their environment and relate to social and natural structures.
What is it?
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Technodruid is a brain-machine interface design that establishes dual human-plant and plant-human communication.
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How it works?
Sensors capture plant biomarkers and return them to the interface to stimulate the brain
The interface captures signals from the brain and communicates with plants using biostimulators
The closed loop produce a non-verbal language between humans and the plant kingdom in a phenomenon we will call neurodruidism
Designs
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The designs has a feasible conception, with viability in the present and a futuristic concept, with
possibility when new sciences and technologies become reality.
In the feasible design, we suggest devices that seek for more
technological accessibility and creativity freedom
such as Arduino and a simple tDCS, to make the design easy to reproduce and able to be incorporate as
educational activities and technological exhibitions.
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In this design, the idea is that the lack of hydration of the plant (water stress) would influence a person, and the stress of the person would influence the plant hydration, thus establishing a dual bond health need, the psychological of the human and the hydration of the plant.
In review, the operating mechanism is about detect human stress and plant hydration levels, effect water release, inducing human sensations (such as fatigue, heat and burning) through electrical stimulus and/or visual responses (plant moving or changing color).
From literature [1] we can extract an indicator of stress through EEG with different levels that would proportionally be related to water release.
The release of water is controlled by Arduino (microcontroller), pumping it. Plant dehydration can be plotted with soil moisture data and water absence time.
The sensations will be simulated in the body using tDCS. Fatigue is the most promising sensation to associate with lack of water, but its replication rate is not that high [2] so for more explicit sensations you could opt for alternatives such as heat and burning.
The two suggested plants can react and literally close under the incidence of an electrical micro-stimulus that will cause the flow of cellular ions, provoking the closure [3,4].
The movement can be a visual sign of a lack of water
Beanstalks are also very efficient at demonstrating dehydration, their leaves change colors under water stress [5] and can visually signal feedback.
State-of-the-Art
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Non-invasive neurotechnologies still have major technological challenges among in isolating, reading and stimulating deep brain regions that participate in important cognitive functions and in controlling specific sensations that will be exploited next.
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State-of-the-Art
Stimulations may become viable with a better appropriation of generating magnetic fields that would
overlap and could stimulate very specific regions [6,7,8], but the tools and automation of these strategies still need to be improved.
For reading, mathematical and biological development can extend the ability of neurotech combined with
EEG to isolate noise and unwanted signals from the brain [9].
Futuristic Concept
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Futuristic Concept
Brain to Plant X Plant to Brain
Water Stress
Light
Soil richness
Growth Hormones
regulation
Reproduction
Multiprocess
Thirst
Sleeplessness
Nutrition
Socialization
Sexual deprivation
or orgasm rate
Bionic plant in integrated Circuit
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Water Stress & Thirsts feelings
The best analogue for the human being to feel the lack of water in the plant would be
thirst
Neuroscience is still understanding its functioning, but today we know that there is
more than one way to feel thirsty in the brain, there are also people without the ability to feel
thirsty (adypsia) and those who feel it in excess (polydipsia).
Apparently we still haven't been able to determine how many different forms of thirst we have. Let's
select the osmotic thirst, to speculate the design and bring the mindset.
The osmotic thirst is associated with the balance of Na+ ("salt") in the body, inside the cells that, in a scenario of imbalance, signals to the brain to simulate a need for thirst.
We know that the Organum vasculosum Lamina Terminalis (OVLT) and Median Preoptic Nucleus areas of the hypothalamus (indicated by the red circle) actively participate in this processing:
Once the feasibility of non-invasive stimulation in micro areas for deep regions of the brain becomes trivial, we could hypothesize that the exploration of these two stimulated areas could be interesting to establish the best feeling of connection with the plant, from what they really need to attend to each other: Water absorption.
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Futuristic Concept
Brain to Plant X Plant to Brain
Growth hormones
regulation
Socialization
In this Conjecture, we draw a more refined view with the social body. The plant may have regulated growth hormones (e.g. Auxin and cytokinin) related to the person's socialization.
We consider here the idea of expansion. Human beings expand their opportunities and improve their ecosystems from the moment they enter into cooperation mode, create networks of affection, trust and integrate multi-realities.
So if the plant doesn't grow vigorously, it will be indicative of a deficient resilience power of its connected druid. The little development with the social body lead and unsatisfactory engagement to understanding the surrounding ecosystems and how rebuilding it.
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Futuristic Concept
Brain to Plant X Plant to Brain
Reproduction
(flowering)
Sexual deprivation or
rate orgasm
Reproduction is another event that it is possible to extrapolate to abstractions of the individual's strength in society. But we can also go literally and bring connections with the person's sexual deprivation, in which it is indicative that their body and mind may be unbalanced.
Plant reproduction can be adjusted through induction of flowering or fecundity rate, but flowering also has other representations, such as love or passion. Both emotions and feelings of neural networks are rooted in survival, which bring liveliness to the individual, even when the plant exposes many flowers.
(molecular florist)
Orgasms would also be great features to extract from the person and plot correlation with the blooming rate. Keep in mind that orgasms are not only found in sex, but in pleasures and achievements such as eating and feeling pleasure in performing a task.
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Futuristic Concept
Brain to Plant X Plant to Brain
Multiprocess
Bionic plant integrated
circuit
Bionic plants could control peripherals and become intermediary agents of actions, which would act both to serve the technodruid and to subjugate him, for example, in the absence of productivity, the plant could turn off distractions such as TV or close social networks.
The brain has the ability to adapt to and absorb objects that react to the body as a part of itself [13] becaming a embodied object. A study with Neymar, a soccer player, suggests that the ball for him is like a part of his body, like the ball has been incorporated into the brain [14] This is possibly the case for other objects that we routinely use such as a car or bicycle.
Once the plant establishes a relationship of receiver and actuator, it can not only be a peripheral reacting, but also part of the person through the use of technology.
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Plant Hormones
When we think about possible chemical strutures of the plant, the main target could be:
[15]Ethylene gas promotes fruit ripening, senescence, and responses to pathogens
and abiotic stresses. IAA (an auxin) regulates cell division and expansion, vascular differentiation,
lateral root development, and apical dominance. Cytokinins are adenine derivatives first identified by
their ability to promote cytokinesis. JA is a volatile signal that modulates pollen development and
responses to pathogen infection. The BRs regulate cell expansion and photomorphogenesis (light-regulated
development). GAs are diterpenoid compounds that promote germination, stem elongation, and the induction
of flowering. ABA promotes seed dormancy and is involved in several stress signaling pathways.
Culture Change
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Neurotechnologies in brain-machine interface are not yet accessible to the public neither as versatile as cell phones. In a future when these technologies are more incorporated into the social body, both in terms of usability and resources, we may see a new fount of possibilities.
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Culture Change
Being in connection with plants and with nature is exercise of new mindsets and behaviors. It is comprehending that resources are limited and that new economies, such as ecologism, will have to be put into practice urgently, once time noted some problems are already irreparable (such as global warming) and the mental virtualization of infinite capital does not help.
We have to have an attitude to change.
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Culture Change
Tecnodruid also connects with other languages and ontologies, such as technoshamanism that brings out different social structures (indigenous tribes and shamans) and consequently, thoughts and valuations of social success in other aspects.
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Finally, connecting with movements similar to technoshamanism even without having developed much in
technological, scientific and sociological terms, brings good reflections and ways of telling new
stories/stereotypes. Different influences from social backgrounds, help to change how we will
imagine; build; survive and thrive on the technologies and
city (society?) of tomorrow.
Culture Change
Technodruid design is our neuroartistic artifact. We drew a line of provocation and possibilities not only to reframe the interaction of plants with humans, but to suggest a future in which we could feel plants; forests; animals and the planet more closely.
The human being has mirroring; imitation and empathy skills, but these are neural circuits that need to be trained..
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Culture Change
Why not go into a urban forest or your home garden and feel all of that mini woods as a part of the body, an analogy to the neural connection of the movie Avatar written by James Cameron.
The world doesn't just need information awareness.
It takes more than knowing, it takes feeling.
