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The Botanicus Interacticus project by Disney Research (in collaboration with Philipp Schoessler, Jonas Loh/Studio NAND, Munehiko Sato) is an interactive technology that creates an expressive visual interaction between humans and plants. It was exhibited at the 2012 SIGGRAPH exhibition. The way the Botanicus Interacticus works is by placing a wire in the plant soil, which when touched or within close proximity with any location of the plant is detected, the collected data will trigger shapes and colours around the plant. Those shapes and colours depend on several factors, including touch/gesture, amount of contact and proximity. This project is based upon a sensing technology Touché, which was previously invented at Disney Research Pittsburgh. The added expression to the plants do not cause any harm and is non-invasive. The main purpose of the project was to eliminate the divide between real and artificial, which also develops new organic forms. My favourite aspect of this project is the response through lighting that dances around the plant based on interaction, which makes what is relatively static into something dynamic.

Below is a video of the interaction between person and plant.