Plant-Computer Interaction, Beauty and Dissemination

We inquire into ways of understanding plant interaction through a triangulation of four approaches: a multispecies ethnography of people's ordinary practices and doings in relation to sakura trees during their short blossoming season; readings of theoretical works on human-plant relations and plants' urge to spread; a systematic review of how plants are involved in computing and computer systems; and finally a review study on how cherry blossoms are used in design and architecture. We bring these together and propose to discuss the involvement of florae in computer systems and design items through the lens of understanding plant interaction as temporally extended dissemination and agency to spread. The design intent within Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) has been to develop systems where non-human species are seen as "users". If such an approach is applied to plants, then we need to frame research in a direction that aims to give us an understanding of what these sorts of users are doing. Since the most successful forms of dissemination are hedonic, we argue that researchers should focus more specifically on system design that supports aesthetic interaction, rather than supporting abstract contemplation, as has been common within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).