Is this Vegetal Desire? On Plants and Consciousness
Western science has for centuries ruthlessly denied plant sentience and consciousness. Even today, as new research unearths evidence of their complex sensorial relationships with the world, resistance grounded in denial seems to pervade disciplinary inquiries as well as public opinion. What is so unsettling about plant sentience? What could we learn from vegetal desire if we don't suppress it like we do with human impulses and wants?
Taking Charles and Francis Darwin's late nineteenth-century studies on climbing plants as a starting point and venturing into speculative philosophical territory through photographic documentation, this talk poses radical questions about the nature of vegetal desire, how it might manifest itself, and how we might attune ourselves to perceive its inherent and often elusive complexity.
Giovanni Aloi speaks as invited guests at Victorian College of the Arts,
University of Melbourne, Australia, in March 2024