The Growing Field Of Cyborg Botany

Close-Up Of Small Plant Growing On Field

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

October 11, 2019

Updated August 07, 2023

If you want to get the attention of your friend who lives thousands of miles away, don't reach for your phone to send off a text message — instead, just poke a fern on your desk, which will trigger a plant on your friend's desk to move.

It's a scenario that might sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it's something that Harpreet Sareen is working on. Sareen is an assistant professor of media and interaction design at Parsons School of Design in New York and director of the synthetic ecosystems lab, which focuses on biological futures and their implications in interaction design. He joined Boston Public Radio on Friday to explain what the field of cyborg botany has in store for the future.

"How do we start bringing back elements of nature back into our life instead of talking to our phone, which is not very natural?" Sareen said. "What I try to bring out from these projects is to bring back that interaction with the natural world."