Plant Opera

produced by Plant Team

2019

Plant Opera

produced by Plant Team

2019

Digital art

Generative art

Installation

Stage performance

Visual arts

Science and technology

Environment

Music and live performance

Digital art

Generative art

Installation

Stage performance

Visual arts

Science and technology

Environment

Music and live performance

Plant Opera is an interdisciplinary, science-art project that believes in transflorism (analogy to transhumanism). We want to give plants the opportunity to express themselves by providing them with a voice, the ability to write and even to create images. To do this we developed a system of sensors allowing us to translate the real-time data expression from plants into sounds, texts and visuals.

Other

Suitable for all audiences

Multiple languages

Update : 15/05/2024

Plant Opera during the Festival CoOperation Archstoyania, Russia 26.07.2019 Second step - Opera with[for] plants (photographie - Arno Zhao)

Plant Opera - Installation (photo - Arno Zhao)

Installation view during Archstoyanie Festival (photo - Archstoyanie)

View of the singing performance (photo - Arno Zhao)

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Plant opera exists in two forms - installation and opera (both indoor and open-air). In the opera human performers (singer, dancer and two performers) lead a fragile dialogue with the plant performers, establishing communication through speech, song and body language.

The installation is a performance by the plants alone, that continues throughout the night and day...

This hybrid work is inspired by current scientific research on the themes of bioethics, plant consciousness, neurobiology. like every opera, it is about life, love and death.

The aspect particularly interesting in the Opera for the plants that involves performers (singers, dancers, ac-tors) is its fragile communication element and visibility of interpretation delicacy, that rediscovers not only the problematic of human/nature relationships but also human to human behaviour. How can I understand nature if don’t understand other human being, no matter if he speaks my language or not? It is about the them, it is about our relationships, but mainly it about who we are here.We are more communicating/transferring information and avoiding the dialogue, listening or drifting on the level of sensations and empathy. The nature language.

Each module is working on the base of one computer, custom created PCB, using wifi and 5 types of sensors.

Some sensors will rather identify the vital environmental elements of the plant, such as the brightness via photosensitive sensor placed on a leaf or magnitude, the temperature of the plant with an infrared sensor, and the humidity sensor around the roots.

Text system uses environmental signals, like humidity, luminosity, temperature to identify the mood of the plant. To each mood of plant there is corresponding pre written feed that is characterizing this state, using scientific terms or poetic assumptions. This feed is by the "decisions" of the electric signal peaks of the plant generates real-time texts