A plant is generally regarded as a biological entity that is rooted to a particular location, says Gunalan Nadarajan, but he aims to overturn this concept in his free public lecture “Moving Plants: Toward an Aesthetics of Phytodynamics,” Friday at 2 p.m. in room 1102, Centre for Engineering Innovation.

“Aristotle and his strict distinction of animals from plants by way of one’s capacity to move and the lack thereof in another, ensured that the botanical and related cultural discourses rarely discussed the sensitivity of plants seriously,” says Nadarajan, dean of the University of Michigan School of Art and Design. “The history of botany however is also riddled with experiments and observations on plant mobility and sensitivity that have systematically explained away such evidence as involuntary, inconsequential or anomalous.”

He will provide a genealogical account of this erasure through an annotated survey of the history of botany, and will follow that with a discussion of  botanists and scientists whose work has explored the neglected field of “phytodynamics,” the study of plant sensitivity and movement.

This event is presented by IN/TERMINUS: Media, Art, and Urban Ecologies, with support from the School for Arts and Creative Innovation and the Art Gallery of Windsor.

Nadarajan will also moderate a panel discussion at the Art Gallery of Windsor, titled “BorderTalk” and featuring artists Ed Pien, Leila Sujir, Lee Rodney, Mike Marcon and Sanaz Mazinani, at 2 p.m. Saturday, January 26. The gallery is located at 4021 Riverside Drive West.