After watching a video of a living plant with machete, I thought of a plant that moves without help of external force. One of them is a prayer plant, family of Maranta, that constantly moves slowly throughout the day when it’s bright and moves drastically when the sun’s down. The leaves are vertical when there’s no light, which is why it’s called a prayer plant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAKQUvTWVjc
My idea for this project is to recreate the prayer plant. In contrast to a living plant with machete, my prayer plant machine would give a healing/calming experience to the audience. An audience will pray/talk to the machine and the machine will respond by moving its leaves. In other words, human’s physiology (voice pitch) will trigger the plant’s movement.
Instead of using a living plant, I would recreate the plant with laser cut wood nodes/petioles and mirror acrylic leaves if I were to work on this project. It would be programmed to move the motors and servos when the audience speaks to the machine (either with a headphone/microphone). According to the voice pitch level, the plant’s leaves will move in different directions and speed. When it’s receiving voice input, the light source on top will change the color to calm and healing color such as blue/green. When there’s little to no input, it will move very slowly in constant speed. The light source on top will be a warm color like yellow/orange.
I chose acrylic mirror for the leaves because it would create magical feeling when it reflects the light as it’s moving/praying. There will be holes on the leaves so they can create unique shadows on the walls. The audience can also see their reflections.
Some leaves will have hobby servo attached so it can rotate, and some leaves will have springs attached so that it creates bouncy movement when the petioles move.
Set up: three walls where one of them will have the plant machine mounted. Headphone/microphone will be right below the machine. Semi-private space for the audience to talk to the machine. Light source is on top on