"I stand under the light of the projected image. The light is warm and dappled; standing beneath it feels soft and immersive, like being beneath a canopy of branches in the sunlight. It elicits memories of being held in the boughs of a tree as a child. I remember an article I read about shrin-rin yoku: the Japanese art of forest bathing and wonder about the implications of relating to this artificial representation of nature as though it were the real thing. I think of Baudrillard’s hyperreality and “the ‘seeping edge’ between the virtual and the actual” Is it possible that both ”real” and ”representational” stimuli might inhabit my neurological networks in the same way; eliciting the same responses within me? I become aware again of a hypocrisy that I cannot seem to avoid: from painting plants with petrochemicals to immersing myself in the artificial light projections of botanical representations. I try to stay open to this complexity without judgement, to lean into it with curiosity. It seems impossible to extricate myself from the harms I inadvertently cause in the world as a human. As long as I live, I am implicated in the complex, rhizomatic relations between nature and technology and the unintentional consequences that manifest from my engagement with the world: these entangled trajectories run through me." Excerpt from my Research Precis PLANTS & PLAY DATES, 2023