After two intense weeks of work, we were asked by our professors to build something unique and unexpected, combining computation with elements from the physical world.
We decided that, if there is something that is intrinsically untouched by programming today, it is living beings, and in particular, plants.
We asked ourselves how we could make a plant communicate with its surroundings. Through various research explorations, we discovered that plants are far more alive than they appear: they listen and react to music, light, and even to the presence of people.
We then wondered what it would be like to replace our devices which often occupy important moments of our daily lives with plants, and how it would feel to interact with them as if they were people: talking to them and watching them grow beside us.
In particular, we wanted to build something that could help people who are alone, perhaps far from home, without close relationships or pets, and to explore how plants could become companions and a source of emotional release.
To achieve this, we used projections directly mapped onto the plant, developed using the Umfeld platform. Alongside this, we built buttons to interact with the plant, allowing users to talk to it and provide it with light, water, and music.
We do not know whether plants understand what we say, but they certainly listen to what we have to share.
