As someone who has failed to keep many a houseplant alive, Happy Plant stuck out to me as a satirical jab at the idea of mechanizing nature. Plants can be so temperamental that it’s tempting to search out a way to guarantee knowledge of their needs, to avoid problems like too much or too little sun, water, and wind. The idea of having a little device that reads the plant’s ‘mind’ and translates its needs is appealing, let alone the feature to give it water and light from a distance. At the same time, I appreciate the mockery of this idea because of how it creates such a distance between the user and the plant. Automating the plant’s care diminishes the effect that looking after it has, making it more of a chore than an object of affection.
Happy Plant is especially interesting given our current situation. With interpersonal connection being largely relegated to the digital, feelings of isolation are pervasive in all walks of life. While I’m not inclined to demonize digital connections, I do think that they can’t fully replace physical ones; there are important factors involved in directly caring for a plant, or interacting with someone else, and some of those factors are lost over a Wi-fi connection.