Sunday, August 24, 2008

Tree Girls

From Daphne to Gina Alonzo in Darna to Rachel Weisz in The Fountain, the woman-tree connection isn't as strange as one may think. In this postmodern world of remakes, I thought, might as well...

But now that the cheque will be cleared on Wednesday, I'm excited to begin searching my tree girl (and the kick-ass crew that will make her spankin').

And scientists are actually thinking the same thing... well, sort of...


"Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom" -- james wright



stolen from http://libarynth.org/groworld_hpi

HUMAN PLANT POLLINATION

Moving beyond the exchange of knowledge and skills, human-plant interaction could lead to a deeper, metabolic symbiosis where we witness the growth of hybrid organisms (at scales necessary to accommodate this evolution). Maybe we could begin by extending the pallette of skin-pigments to include chlorophyll, carotene, or blue-purple anthocynanines, gradually learning to change colour depending on our moods. More importantly, perhaps we could allow our upper epidermis to be invaded by deeply green symbionts able to photosynthesise. Would this symbiont feed directly on the carbon dioxide in venous blood, or that exhaled from our lungs? Could botanical extremophiles form a living protective defense, allowing us to live in polluted areas, sequestering toxins, or metabolising substances harmful to un-augmented humans? How would we reciprocate, how would we extend our existing bacterial symbiosis to include nutrients for our plant companions?

Pollination, or cross-fertilisation between plants and humans would require methods, techniques and perspectives which suggest potentials beyond the mechanistic or teleological views of the universe. Perhaps we could examine what Agnes Arber called the “organismal approach” in which “the vital co-ordination of structures and processes is not to an alien intelechy but is an integral part of the living system itself.” (Arber, 1954)

4 comments:

rico said...

Pam, congrats with this! Good to hear Teddy Co's making his presence felt by having the NCCA support projects like this. It's sad, everywhere else in the world someone like Guillermo del Toro is considered a truly inspired "auteur" and yet here in 'Pinas they'd probably think he was a maker of dumb, cartoony films. And his ultra-talented DOP Guillermo Navarro just won an Oscar to boot! So it's very cool to hear someone here pursuing material like this. Let the archaic-minded pundits stick their heads back in the sand. Good luck with this! :-)

Pamstr said...

thanks rico. i do hope this gets to the festival rounds too sans the gratuitous depiction of phippine poverty aheheh.. goodluck on Killdroid

gingmaganda said...

hiya pam! tinag kita http://gingmaganda.blogspot.com/2008/08/copy-paste.htm i hope your blog likes it, it's good for those ads of yours =)

Pamstr said...

thanks ging. i'll re-post it. i'm such a dufus with this Technorati thing and I don't know much bloggers to tag ahehe.