The Extraterrestrial Botanist (2017)

Video Installation, New Media Sculpture & Research Ensemble
Site and Sound Festival, Eastern Bloc, Montréal, QC

The Extraterrestrial Botanist invites viewers into an imagined encounter with plant life as an interdimensional intelligence, as an ancient, vegetal emissary whose knowledge is carried through vibration, growth, and the subtle architectures of living matter.

At the centre of the installation is Closer to Home, a 7-minute HD video that immerses the viewer inside a disorienting, saturated environment of vegetal forms. Filmed in close proximity to plants, water, and shifting light, the video acts as a portal, as an invitation to consider what communication might look like from the perspective of a more-than-human traveller.

Artifacts from an Imagined Ecology

Surrounding the video is a constellation of sculptural works that deepen the fiction of an extraterrestrial botanist conducting research on Earth:

• VI: Vegetal Intelligence
  A speculative model of “quantum plant mind,” built from 3D-printed components, living plants, hand-blown glass, and electronic sensors. This hybrid organism proposes that intelligence may arise from rhythm, repetition, and co-presence rather than cognition alone.
  A labyrinthine structure grows outward, echoing fungal networks, root patterns, and neural lattices.

• Marma Harp
  An irregular polyhedral instrument designed to explore intergalactic communication through vibration.
  Tuned through touch, resonance, and the body, the harp channels frequencies inspired by marma points, energetic nodes in somatic traditions, suggesting that sound may be the bridge between worlds.

A Research Studio Crossing Disciplines

Many elements of the installation were fabricated using CNC routing, laser cutting, and 3D printing alongside hand-formed glass, metalwork, and plant-based experiments.
The project becomes a meeting ground between:

• biological inspiration

• traditional craft

• speculative design

• emerging imaging and digital fabrication technologies

A World of Cross-Species Possibility

The Extraterrestrial Botanist builds a narrative of research, discovery, and cross-species kinship. It invites the audience to imagine plant life as emissary, archive, and interdimensional guide, an entity offering teachings about resilience, communication, and the subtle technologies of living systems.