In 2012, I began working with musician and sound artist Mileece on a new iteration of her plant-based musical project for a performance at MoMA, curated by Wilder Quarterly.
Her work has used both human-controlled and bioelectric sensors connected to plants, to drive immersive soundscapes and musical compositions. For the performance, we wanted to unify several different sound-sets and compositions into one unified whole, integrating sensors, more fixed compositions, as well as live cello and voice.
This meant reviving and refactoring code stretching back ten years, driving it with new sensor rigs, and integrating the component parts into a performance framework that was flexible and realtime enough to allow for improvisation and fast iteration. Using SuperCollider’s CV classes as a base, we built an environment where every sensor signal and parameter could be tracked, visualized, controlled, and mapped to instruments quickly and easily.
Many of the sensors were reading bioelectric & signals from plants on-stage, which are extremely sensitive to touch and even the motion of the air. The range and responsiveness of these sensors could change radically depending on ambient temperature, moisture, even time of day (not to mention different plants between Mileece’s Los Angeles studio and New York City). Our software allowed us to easily remap and scale plant inputs to different inputs in the system, at rehearsal or performance time.
Selected performances
September 2015
Sonic Garden @ Sonos Studio, Los Angeles
September 2013
Decibel Festival Opening Gala @ Chihuly Glass Garden, Seattle
Mileece [in collaboration with Scott Carver, Serena Tideman (cello), Andreas Leonardsen (voice)]
May 2013
MoMA-PS1 EXPO Opening Party @ The Modern Museum of Art, New York City
Mileece [in collaboration with Scott Carver, Daniel Bensi (cello), Jim Toth (speaker system)]
Feb 2013
PopRally presents: Bioelectricity @ The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Mileece [in collaboration with Scott Carver, Daniel Bensi (cello), Jim Toth (speaker system), and Peter Johnson (live video)]
