In 2006\u20132007, Giovanni Aloi launched the online journal Antennae: The Journal of Nature and Visual Culture<\/em>, dedicated to multidisciplinary investigations, notably on the connections between art and the non-human. This, as well as his first book, Art & Animals <\/em>(2011) provides a backdrop for the work under review here. Why Look at Plants<\/em>, winner of the 2019 Choice Outstanding Academic Title, is a deep dive into the arts and that broad, unruly swath of non-human life, the plant world. Aloi sets out his methodological path in a brief preface, followed by his major introductory essay that begins with his childhood memories of plant\/human connections. <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the second part of this essay, \u201cPlants and Animals: Issues of Representation,\u201d Aloi considers the inescapable roles that cognitive, cultural, and physical contexts play in our understanding of the non-human. As he notes, \u201cevery encounter with others, nonhumans, objects, parti-cles is utterly defined by the materiality, modality, structure, and histories of the epistemic spatializations in which the encounter takes place.\u201d Acknowledging a debt to Foucault\u2019s notion of \u201cepistemic spatialization,\u201d Aloi evokes the arts as a tool for overcoming \u201cplant blindness,\u201d our anthropocentric mental preconditioning that hinders our awareness of the plant world. This discussion culminates in a careful elaboration of the notion of spatializations, that, as he summarizes elsewhere in the book, \u201cculturally and economically inscribe the blueprints of biopower relationships between humans and plants.\u201d This concept sets the stage for the body of the text that unfolds in eight spatially conceived parts (comprising thirty-five chapters), titled: Forest<\/em>, Trees<\/em>, Garden<\/em>, Greenhouse<\/em>, Store<\/em>, House<\/em>, Laboratory<\/em>, and of Other Spaces<\/em>. Each of these commences with an introductory essay by Aloi, followed by essays by an international roster of contributors, including artists, writers, theorists, curators, and academics. These contributions cover an immense range of approa-ches and themes. They include, to take only a few examples, Natasha Myers\u2019 revisionary experiencing of trees in an urban public park through a kinesthetic awareness; Lucy Davis\u2019 multifaceted socio-cultural inquiry into an eighty-year-old bed made of teak; Laurie Palmer\u2019s consideration of lichens and their unwillingness to grow under human controlled environments; Linda Tegg\u2019s meditation on supermarkets and the disconnects between the commodified plant world and the world of humans; the fascinating transcription of a thread from an online discussion forum on the subject of Home Depot\u2019s disposal of plants; Monika Bakke\u2019s projections of, \u201cnew plant-machine hybrid systems\u201d; Andrew Yang\u2019s provocative look at some evolutionary contingencies; Aloi\u2019s interviews with Mark Dion about the artist\u2019s important portfolio, Herbarium Perrine<\/em>; and Aloi\u2019s discussion with Mat Collishaw about the latter\u2019s explorations of artificiality and decay, a contemporary re-thinking of Victorian aesthetics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In sum, Why Look at Plants? <\/em>is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of the arts in considering human\/non-human interactions, plant blindness, posthumanist thought, or the myriad implications of the Anthropocene. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n