Welcome to “HORROR!”, a podcast by the researchers of the charity University of the Underground’s Horror Programme. This tuition free programme was led by speculative designer Agi Haines from November 2021 to March 2022, as a critical exploration into illicit societal fears and a dive into horror as a complex tool and genre. In every episode of this series we will explore research topics from our projects, with the help of experts, practitioners, artists, and much more. Our host throughout this podcast series will be Necro, our cheeky demonic guide on a nightly journey full of ghosts, shadows, and inexplicable monsters…but no need to worry, as all our guests, human and non-human, have promised to stay in the studio. Be prepared, though: these encounters might easily transport into your homes some uncanny perspectives on our present. Find the full HORROR! playlist here on soundcloud.

In this episode, Agi Haines gives us some suggestions about plant horror and vegetal otherness. Our researcher Ludovica Battista sits down with the researcher Jye O’Sullivan and Elizabeth Parker, to talk about commodification of plants, interspecies ethics, and dive into the EcoGothic framework. Our host Necro is joined for an exclusive interview by Dr Mexia & Monstera Perspicua. Our tracklist complements this experience with songs about houseplants, nature and interspecies dark sides.

Featuring:

Ludovica Battista, architect, writer and researcher with a transdisciplinary approach, based in Southern Italy. Her work explores the present territorial and urban condition, and their interspecies living flesh.

Agi Haines, speculative designer. Her work is focused on the design of the human body as a malleable object through which she explores how far we can push our living flesh while still being accepted by society.

Jye O’Sullivan is a lecturer and researcher at the TUDublin School of Creative Arts specialized in History of Art and Visual Cultures. His research interests include Cybernetics, Queer Ecology, Post-Colonial Art and Art Historiography. 

Elizabeth Parker, founder editor of Gothic Nature Journal: New Directions in Ecohorror and the EcoGothic and author of The Forest and the EcoGothic: The Deep Dark Woods in the Popular Imagination.

Ludovica Battista as Dr Mexia, a botanist who discovered a dreadful truth about Etsy’s coolest tropical plant Monstera Perspicua, that might lead you into a nightmarish interspecies tragedy.

James Nola as Necromantique or Necro, our demonic host who pays homage to 80s cult horror, that will get your bones giggling.

Thank you for listening. We hope that this series will contribute to inspire, to communicate powerful messages, to expose enduring dynamics of the contemporary world and to challenge our understanding of its structures and taboos. If we didn’t scare you enough, and you want to know more about our projects, join us for more episodes or visit https://universityoftheunderground.org!

Coordination, proof-listening, scripting: Veronika Hanáková, Ludovica Battista

Production, editing, music selection: Ludovica Battista

Hosting: James Nola, Ludovica Battista

TRACKLIST:

CNN Predicts a Monster Storm – Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet

Reverie for Fragile Houseplants – Tomaga

Houseplants – Squid

Vegetation Flesh – Nocturnal Emissions

Intro – Gorillaz

Nature – Tuxedomoon

Back to Nature – Tuxedomoon

Plant People – Ben Salisbury & Geoff barrow, from Annihilation soundtrack

Nature is not created in the image of man’s compassion – Tzusing