Manga farming
12 Apr 2010
Tokyo-based artist Koshi Kawachi recently demonstrated his "Manga Farming" technique -- which uses old manga as a growing medium for vegetables -- by cultivating a crop of radish sprouts in an installation at the Matsuzakaya department store in Nagoya.
[Link: Koshi Kawachi]
Great idea for the usage of any old books. It is competitive with recently famous moss aquariums.
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This is amazing. Both artistic and scientific, great for kids and adults. I love it!
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That's pretty cool.
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I like this idea in principle, but isn't the ink toxic? And for that matter, the bleach in the paper?
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Are you scared for the plants? I mean, they either thrive or they die, right?
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I think the concern is if the plants are eaten and that then has adverse affects on the animal, which it might not have had on the plant. We see it in the wild with insecticides which are sprayed on plants, and eaten by insects, which are then eaten by other animals between them being poisoned and them dying. Then the poison continues up the food chain and can cause all kinds of havoc on the food web.
So yes, if it's decorative it's not that big a deal. The problem is whether it'll be a big deal if someone eats the plants.
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Only a selfless person without a heart wouldn't care about the plants. They might have feelings and thoughts too, but the human race is too shallow to try to listen. In these photos they seem to be thriving pretty well, for a plant person's point of view. But they do breathe, eat, and grow so they must have a life like us!
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Wow are you happy in your fairy world? I mean seriously. Reality is down here with the rest of us. Plants don't have a brain, therefore, they cannot be anything like us. Even insects, which have a teeny rudimentary brain of some kind, are merely natures robots, reacting to everything, and not thinking for themselves. Damn, even many people I see out there are all "zombied" out, or acting like ants in their routines.
In order to have feelings, you need a sense of self. Plants don't have that. Neither do insects. Higher animals do, based on their reactions being similar to that of human when confronted with emotional stimulus.
I am very aware of the various experiments done to plants to try to get some kind of EKG stimulus reaction due to emotional stress. Those findings were interesting, but ultimately inconclusive, since the results could have easily been effected by vibrations (insects landing on them, people nearby stomping around etc.)... Vibrational sounds can infinitesimally shake the plant, and therefore cause mini-vibrations to occur. Depending on the frequency of vibration, the results would be different. Also the fact that EKG is not effective in determining emotion, just meant for stress levels to determine a lie. (This is why EKG evidence is not admissible in court, but only used as a psychological tool by authorities to get a general idea of the direction of the suspects stress level to determine truth. If found to be lying, then they can investigate in that direction. That person would only be found guilty of lying to police when they have found the evidence to prove that and the crime.
Back to my main point: Just because something "might" have feelings, doesn't make it actual. A maybe is no reason to act on something as fact. That is insane, counter to survival and unrealistic. We may have ideals and wishes, but if we were to live and expect life to follow that vein of ill logic, we would be very disappointed. There is no ideal anything. Only the struggle to have ideal in our lives. It is the journey to get to that ideal that is important. It is the same as perfection. Nobody will ever get there because it is an abstract concept, very much subjective in nature.
The problem with your point of view is it is very idealistically unrealistic. Everything consumes others to survive. That fact doesn't make that thing feeling or thinking. Fungus is alive, growing and feeding. Do you want to call that feeling? No, its not enough. Intelligence needs more than that. Feelings need more than that to happen too.
CIAO
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Janae is just a troll. Mordoz Cookie Lord is apparently not very well-versed in the ways of the internet.
Unless he's some kind of genius reverse-troll. Oh God.
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Janae is a genuine plant loving person, who is perhaps a little over enthusiastic on behalf of her non-speaking friends.
Mordoz Cookie Lord is EITHER a massive twat who can't stand other people having a different opinion than him, even when it affects him in no way whatsoever, OR a massive twat on a trolling spree who just happened to choose to pick on someone who likes plants.
I think he's a troll. because those arguments are painful to read... Especially this one, which requires a slap in the face response;
"A maybe is no reason to act on something as fact."
So if a doctor says he thinks you might have cancer, you'll do nothing about it. Good, we could use less obtuse unforgiving people, there are plenty to take your place.
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i dont know about that i mean,well they cant play or run or have a payin job and other stuff.So they must not have legs or arms or a head!
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Death, Death, Death Eternal to the root bound scum, to the hellish green dirt eating fiends. We will feed them to our brood, we will grind thier children to make our bread. We will reside within thier hollowed out corpes! No longer shall they feast on corruption, no longer shall they pollutute the Earth with caustic oxygen gas Ah hahahahaha!
Seriously people, arguing about the civil rights of bean sprouts? Did you know there are grains of sand that are being drowned on beaches everywhere? What about the sand? What about the Sand!
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Well cookie lord I think that Janae is rig, plants provide us with food, basically 3 quarters of what we eat. We should at least respect them and provide them with what they need to survive. I think Janae is also not a troll but yet a very caring person and I respect her opinion a lot.
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and the other quarter is I presume meat/other animal based products? The cow says "omnomnom plants"
basically chain goes sun > plants > animals > greedy gits... I mean humans :)
but hey, those cows are tasty :P
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Humans were not meant to eat cows. Humans have mainly herbivorous teeth and are quite slow. We were really only meant to eat a mainly vegetarian diet, and insects and small prey including fish. We only eat red meat because the human race is full of greedy bastards who think just because we can, we should, because cows taste good.
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Hmmm - what's that they say about what you find on beer-nuts at pubs... something like they typically have the urine of 10+ guys on them. I hate to imagine what you'd find on the pages of your typical manga book. ?;`)
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very nice work..
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What a great idea! Recycling AND making something aesthetically pleasing. I have some old issues of Shonen Jump that I'd love to try this with.
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Wow, this sure brings gardening to new levels as an artform... although, it puts me in mind of a comic book store owner I once knew who got in trouble for encouraging a wacky patron to eat a whole issue of a manga so they could video as a youtube stunt. Apparently the inks in most comics (especially B&W ones) are carcinogenic. I wonder if that has any effects on the plants seen here.
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they seem to be growing quite well, so i don't see any reason for them to be affected by it at all.
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Love this idea of growing something new using something old. There's something very organic about that. Makes me want to try my own!
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Whoa, that's pretty awesome! o:
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Does anyone know how to make this? I'd love to try it.
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How does the ink not become toxic to the plant?
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ink is not toxic i drink it all the time
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thats not always true i knew this guy that drank some kind of ink and 3 days later he died!
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The plants still die, they have no soil. This is like that experiment kids do in elementary school where they grow a seed in a cup filled with damp cotton balls.
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Who says you need soil to grow? You just need a medium and nutrition. Ever heard of Hydroponics? or Aeroponics?
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This is Plant necrophilia and Cannibalism...
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XD That's pretty funny. :3
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-huh
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I think these are beautiful! I remember doing a science experiment in 7th grade about growing plants in paper towels and paper, but seeing plants grown with beautiful manga pages really takes the cake for me! I think doing an installation with artist Mel Chin would bring his Revival Field idea and manga farming together in an excellent way.
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that's really cool, wow, i never thought that was possible
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No offense, but that sounds EXTREMELY weird... and won't the books be dirty..? O_o
I wouldn't feel safe eating a vegetable that grew out of one of those books...
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Open your mind to new things, then you can enjoy variety.
You can also become more knowledgeable about said thing so you wont sounds ignorant and sad.
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Very strange idea but to bad for the plants, why not just put them in a plant bucket filled with newspaper.
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好漂漂哦~喜欢~^^
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I'd like to see the roots tearing through the pages, or see what it looks like if the plant didn't die and a full radish was grown.
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That is awesome wish i had one for my own.
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graet idea and may need further improvements.
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Las bibliotecas serán aún mas hermosas cuando la vegetación retome el lugar de los hombres tal como sucede entre las paredes de las ciudades en ruinas
thumbs up :)
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WHOOOOOOAAAAAA he's using Jojo? WHY?
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I think that is Hokuto no Ken in picture 4 in the back, and I don't see any other jojo looking mangas.
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NIIICE *-* !!! Great Idea !
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I can appreciate the aesthetic quality of it... but what exactly are "old" manga? Manga you don't like?
I just don't like the idea of ruining books. :S
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GASP!! Waste of a perfectly good comic book !! :(
But then again that is so cool!!
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i never knew! that is so cool
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SAWEEEEEEEEET!!
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Amazing! I would love to try that!
Except, not with my manga. I value them way too much to turn them into that! :))
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that's really nice!
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ahora sé qué hacer con la vieja guía telefónica
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that is frikin awesome! each face is one of my many sides!
(>_<) < I got soooooooooooooo many books i could do this with.
(^_^) < time to hit the library!
(-_-) < if i had time... and seeds...
(o_O) ^_^)> < those poor books deserve a hug.
()_()
(=^.^=) < Haha! im new here. plz help him!
(''')__(''')
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On a scientific level plants have no feeling and aren't self aware, on a spiritual that is quite the opposite. But being spiritual can only get you so far in civilization.
~because none of us are as crule as all of us- ananomous ~
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haha i like that quote
~because none of us are as crule as all of us- ananomous ~
nice one Gith'Ren moonpetal
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