In this project, I am working with more than human actors such as:
- bacteria of many kinds
- indigo molecules
- bees
- spiders
- plants
- flowers
I do not ask indigo plants if I can harvest (cut off most of its body) or ask cosmos if I can take the flowers. Bees are for sure annoyed that I take the flowers away as they are feeding from them. On the other hand as I take the flowers away, the plants are keep making flowers… so the flowering period is prolonged from my action which could be benefiting the bees. Spiders are benefiting from my action as these plants are attracting insects and they are making the web on the plants. I often see them catching insects…
and I am doing all this “work” to extract indigo monocular and use it for my purpose… In one way, I am exploiting them. On another way, it is exploiting me to seed, water, weed and take care of the plants so they can grow … and I do not know if there are any ethical concerns to my action among the molecules.
These thoughts came as I talked with Victoria and she mentioned about the actor network theory of Bruno Lature and how he talked about the microscope as a tool that changes the perspective.