“The Plant in Us – Beyond Human-Centered Thinking” – Soyun Jang

During the Transmission in Motion seminar held on 18 November 2020, “Plant-based Dramaturgy”, Manuela Infante discussed the creative process of her performance Estado Vegetal. Understanding theater as “embodied philosophy in development” (Infante 2020), Infante explores the ideas of plant intelligence and communication. Her work is post-anthropocentric in the sense that she experiments with the possibility of thinking, being, and communicating in a way that is fundamentally different from the way of humans.

The creative process of this piece, she explained, began with asking the question of how we are plants ourselves in our way of thinking. Focusing on how plants endlessly branch out, Estado Vegetal is her attempt to create a play that itself branches out in many different ways, rather than linearizing her thoughts or returning to one central idea. Thus, just like a plant, this play is able to divide and adapt. According to Infante’s explanation, the story will still continue to branch out even if Estado Vegetal is cut into shorter pieces – similar to the way plants continue to grow when they are divided into pieces. Just like plants, the play reflects on its environment to decide its own shape, itself performing a non-cognitive way of thinking.

Figure 1. Infante mentioned during the seminar that plants do not return to a center – rather, they endlessly branch out. Photo: RegalShave. 2017. Photograph of an oak tree. Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/ photos/oak-tree-tree-huge-old-charleston-2018822/.

As fascinating it is to consider ways of thinking and existing that are different from the ways of humans, this raises a question about whether it is possible for us to empathize with plants – or any other non-human beings – in a post-anthropocentric way. How do we find a balance between thinking of plants as mere resources and considering them as a human-like species? How do we acknowledge differences between humans and plants without creating a hierarchy?

To answer these questions, I suggest that we turn to Denise Ferreira da Silva (2016) and her ideas on thinking about difference. In discussing how we could empathize with the “other”, she proposes an image of an entangled world where difference exists without separability, and where we can imagine “each existant (human and more-than-human) not as separate forms relating through the mediation of forces, but rather as singular expressions of each and every other existant as well as of the entangled whole in/as which they exist” (da Silva 2016, 63).

Drawing on this proposal, we can imagine ourselves as entangled with plants, as with all other beings. There may be differences in the way in which we exist in the world, but that does not separate nor create a hierarchy between humans and non-humans. Such a way of thinking opens up a possibility for us to appreciate plants as they are, and accept them as a part of us – and us a part of them.

References

• CIM/Ae. 2017. “ESTADO VEGETAL de Manuela Infante.” Vimeo video 1:21:38. https://vimeo.com/252358003.
• da Silva, Denise Ferreira. 2016. “On Difference Without Separability.” In 32nd Bienal De São Paulo Art Biennal: Incerteza Viva, edited by Jochen Volz et al., 57-65. Accessed November 25, 2020. https://biennial.com/files/pdfs/7879/d-ferreira-da-silva-on-difference-without-separability.pdf.
• Infante, Manuela. 2020. “Plant-based Dramaturgy.” Moderated by Liesbeth Groot-Nibbelink. Seminar presented at Transmission in Motion Seminar (2020-2021): Knowledge in Making – Design by Doing, Utrecht University, November 18, 2020.