Aspidistra sound

Why observe an aspidistra? When we observe the world we are also collecting data about it, which helps us interpret what happens in our reality. This work used as a base the data taken from monitoring the aspidistra through Smart Citizen. For the most part this data is used from the scientific perspective to interpret the state of the plant and its external conditions, in order to create predictive models that can be recreated in various conditions. In this case, the aim was to generate an aesthetic interpretation of the database through its sonification and the creation of visuals that interacted with the sound, using live coding. The interpretation exercise is also translation, as it aims to give voice to the aspidistra through database sonification.

This piece is a recording of a live coding intervention performed at Casa de Porras with the aspidistra, using the sonification of the database taken over a month, using Tidal Cycles for the soundscape and Hydra for the interaction with sound and visuals. The action seeks to be an index in which the plant is given the capacity to act in the "world", in order to point out the need to generate mediation between non-human and human agents; in this way, a translation exercise is done that wants not only to passively mediate between different systems, but to be an emergent process of generating various meanings. Thus, we could say that observing an aspidistra gives us the possibility to interpret it and give it agency capacity in the world, generating emergent systems of signification between human and non-human agents.