RESEARCH & CV

Research Creation: Game-ified garden design

TASK: to design a tool to promote horticulture and urban agriculture.

SOLUTION: a ‘deck-building’ card game that can be used to expertly design a functioning garden. I designed a ‘plant deck’ of over 300 unique playing cards representing plants and their required growing conditions. I then designed a survey and an accompanying set of rules which, when used together, can be used to procedurally remove cards from the plant deck. In the end, you are left with cards representing plants that will thrive in your garden’s site conditions. Each card includes a photo of the plant, its unique characteristics, and its mature height and spread, allowing users to strategically design their gardens on grid paper (instructions for designing a garden to scale are included in the plant deck’s ruleset).

Matt leading a group of students through a garden design workshop using the game-ified garden design system

A group of students using the game-ified garden design system to plan their backyard gardens

Participant A's inherited 'garden of weeds' (before picture). — Participant A’s inherited ‘garden of weeds’ (before picture).

Completing the garden site condition survey

Selecting plants based on her survey results.

A garden design using her selected plants

Participant A's successfully planted garden (after picture) — Participant A’s successfully planted garden (after picture)

Research Project: Vocal Pitch and Drag in the Discursive Performance of Genderfluidity

QUESTION: Considering that vocal pitch is used in the performance of binary gender, what role does vocal pitch play in the performance of genderfluidity?

SUMMARY: A case study was conducted of how Micah (pseudonym) – a self-identified Black genderfluid drag performer – performs genderfluidity through speech.
Audio recordings were made of organically occurring conversations between myself, Micah, and Micah’s friends, while we played a series of board games. An acoustic phonetic analysis of these recordings was performed and moments of high rises in vocal pitch were confirmed. The discursive context surrounding these moments was transcribed. Critical discourse analysis of these transcribed sections was performed.
The findings of this study show how falsetto – a socially salient rise in vocal pitch – is used during moments of stancetaking. It is in these moments when vocal pitch operates in conjunction with physical style and stancetaking to perform genderfluidity.

NOTE: Photos of the participant have been included and shared in the original study and the dissemination of its findings with the ongoing informed consent of the participant.