Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Gilchrist, Sandra

Area of Concentration

Integration of the Biological and Visual Arts

Abstract

Research into light mediated plant growth patterns has been studied throughout the last century, elucidating the impact of photoreceptors on the initiation and mediation of photomorphogenesis through complex, interdependent signaling. Phytochrome, cryptochrome, and UVR8 are the most currently investigated photoreceptors due to their importance. Recent studies have focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of these photoreceptors as well as between the photoreceptors and proteins with known photomorphogenic properties such as COP1, TOPP4 and PIFFs. Through biology literature research, I was exposed to anthropomorphism within the sciences. I was inspired by the visually evocative language applied within academia to construct creatures that bridge the line between sessile and animate. By merging plant and human forms, I challenge the human centricity of anthropomorphism through deconstruction of the species separation. In a more general sense, this studio work explores how we try to understand and empathize with the unfamiliar.

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