Looking Outwards – 04 – [OLD FALL 2020] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

The project I chose to learn more about was a project called “Plant Sounds” by TomuTomu . The project looks at the sounds various plants emit by “translating the electrical micro-voltage fluctuations” generated by the plants. This signal is then coded and used to produce a soundscape. What’s so interesting about this design is that the sounds come out so smooth and beautiful and that the plant is able to create that. I think for them to build this they would’ve needed to code the input values of the plant, from their electrical micro-voltage fluctuations, and assign values to them that would then relate to the code what time of sound output matches each value. I think the creator’s sensibilities lie in the sounds that are outputted because though the plant gives a specific value for the sounds, the creator decides which pitch is assigned to which value. I also linked another project regarding a similar project but one that experiments with adding voltage to plants and graphing out their molecular DNA changes to this signal. This is the TED talk by Greg Gage.