4.13 ^E
Jardin électromagnétique
Electromagnetic Garden

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The Electromagnetic Garden is designed to establish a quasi-autarchic, symbiotic relationship between human beings, plants and the computer, based on the physical, biological and electromagnetic interactions generated by the whole system : a probable garden, as a prefiguring of a new nature. The Electromagnetic Garden is a garden of the new climates created by the electronic networks in which we are physiologically immersed. With its electromagnetic fields, artificial lights, electronic windows and nonionizing radiation, the Internet establishes physical interfaces at each connection that create a chemical link between the screen and the retina, emitted light and chlorophyll photopigments. What we are acknowledging is the physical side of the system, the invisible geography that it creates, electromagnetic fluxes of varying intensity, which define new environmental spaces that alter our metabolism. Electronic and hormonal architectures, electromagnetic and physiological town planning - a new spatial dimension is emerging, based on new telecommunication media, the Internet and mobile telephony. Taking its rationale solely from the Web, the Electromagnetic Garden analyzes the physical interfaces between the body and the screen, between plants and the screen, between plants and our bodies : an equation with three chemically dependent parameters.
 The Electromagnetic Garden is a futurological study, a basis for research yet to come. It rests on reputable but as yet unproven scientific evidence. The first body of evidence suggests that prolonged exposure of human beings to electromagnetic fields may cause health problems, especially cancers such as leukemia. These findings are the basis for the precautionary measures being instituted by European nations, which have been setting minimum distances between residential areas, schools and mobile telephone system antennas, for example. For the same reasons, the British government recently recommended avoiding the use of portable telephones by children. Another body of evidence, much less rigorous in this case, is the result of experiments conducted at the Swiss Institute of Geobiology by Blanche Merz, who measured the neutralization of the electromagnetic radiation from computer screens or television sets by a Mexican cactus, Cereus peruvianus. Scientific tests of debatable objectivity, such as the georhythmogram, allegedly demonstrated the corrective effect of the cactus. The Electromagnetic Garden is based on these two sets of findings. It is intended to be a possible line of research, a basis for future experiments, and not an application, since the findings have yet to be confirmed. It is an experiment that will be conducted for several years in order to examine the effect of electromagnetic fields on health and the ability of the cactus Cereus peruvianus to neutralize the harmful radiation from computer screens. Anyone who surfs the Internet and wishes to volunteer can take part in this experiment by creating his or her own Electromagnetic Garden, following the procedure described at panoplie.org. If the experiment yields positive results concerning the efficacy of Cereus peruvianus, it would then be suggested to hardware manufacturers that they include the Electromagnetic Garden directly in the plastic shell of the monitor.
 The Electromagnetic Garden is designed for deterritorialized spaces having no natural climatic context. The only requirement is a minimal supply of water ( human transpiration may be sufficient ). The cacti are able to photosynthesize with the radiation coming from the screen. We therefore propose to set aside a portion of cyberspace for a single emission of light at wavelengths corresponding to the absorption spectrum of the chlorophyll photopigments of cacti, i.e., in the violet ( around 420 nm ) and in the red ( around 680 nm ), that is, a faintly pinkish light. This zone of cyberspace, which holds no information for human beings but is designed solely for plants, becomes a sort of garden on the Internet, created by the same rationale as that underlying the development of city parks : health and esthetics, a sort of culturally and economically nonproductive, but physiologically promisingspace.

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Jardin électromagnétique
Installation
- Galerie Plan( S ) Libre( S ), Geneva, Switzerland, September 1 to September 17, 2000
- Panoplie.org, http : / / www.panoplie.org / jardin / rham / rham.html, fall 2000
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Décosterd & Rahm, associés
Collaboration : Jérôme Jacqmin