An interesting project with an unconventional input.

Being a big plant lover, from having watched my mother nurture plants like the way she nurtured me (sometimes even more!), to having my own plant babies propagating at various times of the year to fill my space in eventually, I found this project to be extremely interested.

There have been many research projects that have looked into understanding the plant from an individualistic perspective. Questions like does a plant feel? does a plant see? does a plant emote? have given rise to many research projects that aim at extending the understanding of plants as species with much more to offer than homo sapiens themselves.

This project looks at creating sound waves and reaction for when a plant is touched. Catch a glimpse here:

Find the open source file for this on this link.

Previously, many experiments have been done to understand the atomic frequency of plants in relation to music, and how the two frequencies compliment each other.

Mother Earth’s Plantasia, an electronic album by Mort Garson created in 1976, was garnered towards productive, happy and healthy development of plants, running along the lines of research studies conducted in The Secret Life of Plants, a book by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird.

Mother Earth’s Plantasia composer Mort Garson with his Moog synthesizer setup.
Sacred Bones Records

Applications

While coming across this project during my research, I began thinking about how nature and the machine have been always viewed as two worlds against each other, instead of two worlds that compliment each other. I am more of a cynic, I look at technology with rust tainted glasses. However, I am beginning to open myself to the world of possibilities with machines, finding ways in which we can actually aim at improving what is believed to be deteriorating through the immediate influx of machinery.

As I begin to think wider about plants, music, and machinery, I couldn’t help but also wander, how would the same application work with art, artists and painters? For the visually impaired? Can we create a live art studio wherein the visually impaired can enjoy an experience of live painting? Can we connect the components of a paint brush, perhaps create the brush using conductive wire, and have its interaction with a canvas or a surface, translate to music? A very nascent idea and experiment, but it definitely makes me think about motion, music, and interaction of different worlds coming together!