When Plants Sing

Wherever electric current exists, the magnetic field is also induced. This means that plants as all living organisms, which utilize electric current in their biology emit weak electromagnetic fields. This installation makes use of a noncontact method for measuring electric fields for the sonification of the plants.

I hear the buzz of the little world among the stalks.

The language that one associates with plants is often heavily personalised, plants are sad, they are happy, they are forlorn, they yearn for life. We talk to them, play music to them in order to stimulate them.

Yet is this not a form of mythologising? When Plants Sing takes us away from the fiction by trying to study plants more appropriately, imagining ways to listen to plants depending on their metabolism.

Überall dort, wo elektrischer Strom fließt, wird ebenfalls ein Magnetfeld induziert. Dies bedeutet, dass Pflanzen wie alle lebenden Organismen, die elektrische Spannungen für ihre biologischen Funktionen nutzen, schwache elektromagnetische Felder emittieren. Die Installation verwendet ein berührungsloses Verfahren zur Messung elektrischer Felder und benutzt die Daten zur Sonifikation der Pflanzen.

Ich höre das Summen der kleinen Welt zwischen den Pfanzenstielen.

Die Sprache die man im Zusammenhang mit Pflanzen verwendet, ist oft stark personalisiert: sind Pflanzen, traurig, sie sind glücklich, fühlen sie sich verloren, sehnen sie sich nach einem Leben. Wir sprechen mit ihnen, spielen ihnen Musik vor, um sie zu stimulieren.

Doch ist dies ist nicht eine Form der Mythologisierung? Wenn Pflanzen Singen führt uns weg von dieser Fiktion. Es stellt die Frage, ob es geeignetere Wege gibt, Pflanzen zu studieren? Und es geht um die Möglichkeit, die Musik der Pflanzen abhängig von ihrem Metabolismus zu erfahren.

 

 

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