Phytomorphism

What do you think of when you think of a plant? For John Carrillo, plants became a representation analogous to what is deemed natural in contemporary Western society. Phytomorphism, meaning ‘plant-form’, is a project challenging this perceived separation between humans and nature, natural and unnatural, by placing them as an acquired construct of categorical thinking in the human brain. Immersive virtual reality guides the viewer through the mechanisms creating the illusion of fixed objects, supported by recent research in neurobiology and the theory of mind. The Phytomorphism experience begins to dissolve patterns of thinking that create these false distinctions, perceiving temporary iteration of reality as a plant’s ongoing evolutionary process.