Singing Plants
Kumert, Tatiana. 2022.
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Singing plants is an interactive artwork inspired by the cottagecore aesthetic, one of the popular trends on social media that romanticizes living in the western countryside. It centers itself in the idea of living simply, with self-sufficiency and in harmony with nature. It also has a strong love for caring for people, animals and making home-baked goods.
What's the theory behind it?
The balance between nature and technology it’s not the same as it was. People are becoming more aware of the importance of stepping away from the screen for a bit. That’s, morally, where the cottagecore aesthetic comes from. Although I agree, I also do realize that technology has opened a whole new world. It adds beauty to life too.
Humans tend to try to fit everything into a supposedly binary system. With Singing Plants I wanted to create something new from the two sides of the same coin. Having immediate technological interaction with the plants, which will respond in this dreamy like sound, a direct reference to the cottage and fairycore aesthetic.
Which technologies were implemented?
Singing plants uses an Arduino UNO with a Photoresistor that analyzes the amount of light that’s being projected on the plants and converts it into readable data for PureData.
There’s a total of four sequencences, each one with a different metro and probability rates for the amount of times a note will play. Which one of those will activate depends on how much light the sensor receives.
Once the sequencer is selected and the notes are played, Ableton Live makes the sound play with the instrument Descenting Dreams, which was selected for its synthetic, dream-like sound (and because the name is pretty neat).