Design Consideration

Plant selection, technology and sound design.

Plant Selection

5 plants are on display as part of the installation. 4 plants were selected based on their visual diversity and how they would look when grouped together. We chose the plants based on their leaf structure, broad to thin, as well as their overall silhouette, tall and long to short and condensed. As the dominate visual in the installation space was the plants themselves, we wanted variation in plant type and to create a striking and inviting tableau. As the commentary of our work is geared towards the human influence on the natural world, the plants are symbolic objects. They were not selected for their own uniqueness but as a medium to execute the concept.

The other plant, the cactus, was selected intentionally. The cactus gives homage to Interactive Plant Growing by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau (1992) which was our inspiration for this piece. In their installation the cactus was used to erase the projections created from the other plant interactions. We wanted to honor their work by incorporating this plant and using it to trigger an event that is at odds with the other plant-human interaction. The cactus has it’s own sound that is triggered by the proximity of human touch. This sound is displeasing in contrast to the other sounds when activated. The sharp spikes of the plant and the dissonant sound all support our commentary that nature has boundaries. We selected this plant to symbolize that not all nature wants to be touched and to cause pause and reflection to our assumption that the natural world is for our use and enjoyment.

Technology

Plant Symphony is more ideological than technological in approach. Our intention to ensure the conceptual nature of our work was the focus of the piece and not the technology. We wanted the “how” of the work to be hidden as to not compete with the plant-human interaction.

Arduino

An Arduino, a microcontroller, was used in conjunction with the Capacitive Sensor library created by Paul Stoffregen. This library facilitates sensor values to be created which can detect the electrical capacitance of the human body when it comes into contact with any conductive object that has been turned into a capacitive sensor. The code used to send sensor value to Processing was based from IAT 267 week 10 lab activity.

Processing 4 and Minim Sound Library

The software used to manipulate sensor value to activate sound was the Processing 4 IDE and the Minim library and AudioSampler methods . There were 7 sounds (see Sound Design) created in LMMS, an audio workstation, that were imported into Processing. 6 sounds were used for 4 plants and the 7th sound was used for the cactus. We mapped the higher sensor values to higher notes in an octave. Each plant had custom ranges to trigger notes as each plant had its own unique sensor values based on it's inherit conductivity. The ranges were chosen based on each plants general sensor value when touched by 1 person. The other notes scaled for multiple touch interactions. These ranges were selected to ensure the optimal change in response so participants would have the best experience.

The following is the selection of the code that mapped each plants sensor value to when it would trigger a sound. Each plant was calibrated on the day of the exhibition to insure the most accurate readings.

//---------------------Plant 1 - Fern
//red lead
//one touch sensor values ~ 140
//range ~ 300
if (plant1> 80 && plant1<310) level2_ChordG3.trigger();
if (plant1>320 && plant1<620) level3_ChordC5.trigger();
if (plant1>630 && plant1<940) level4_ChordE5.trigger();
if (plant1>950 && plant1<1250) level5_ChordF5.trigger();
if (plant1>1280) level6_ChordG5.trigger();

//---------------------Plant 2 - big leafy
//green lead
//one touch sensor values ~350
//range 300 - 500
if (plant2>80 && plant2<510) level2_ChordG3.trigger();
if (plant2>520 && plant2<1020) level3_ChordC5.trigger();
if (plant2>1030 && plant2<1340) level4_ChordE5.trigger();
if (plant2>1350 && plant2<1750) level5_ChordF5.trigger();
if (plant2>1760) level6_ChordG5.trigger();

//---------------------Plant 3 - spikey
//black lead
//one touch ~50
//range 100
if (plant3>60 && plant3<160) level2_ChordG3.trigger();
if (plant3>180 && plant3<280) level3_ChordC5.trigger();
if (plant3>300 && plant3<400) level4_ChordE5.trigger();
if (plant3>420 && plant3<520) level5_ChordF5.trigger();
if (plant3<540) level6_ChordG5.trigger();

//---------------------Plant 4 - tree
//yellow lead
//one touch ~500
//range various
if (plant4>150 && plant4<610) level2_ChordG3.trigger();
if (plant4>620 && plant4<820) level3_ChordC5.trigger();
if (plant4>830 && plant4<1240) level4_ChordE5.trigger();
if (plant4>1250 && plant4<1750) level5_ChordF5.trigger();
if (plant4<1760) level6_ChordG5.trigger();

//---------------------Plant 5 - cactus
//blue lead
//one touch ~60
if (plant5>50) cactus.trigger();

Sound Design

The first sound that was created was a baseline for the exhibition. This sound always plays all throughout the exhibition and is meant to showcase that even though there are no interaction, the plant is still an independent entity with its own conductivity. This note is a G note in the third register, specifically chosen as the G note is the namesake of the treble clef, the most common western musical notation. This is meant to also represent to start our symphony.

The remaining 5 sounds for the 4 plants are different chords that slowly go up. There is a second inversion C Major Chord from the third register, and a C Major chord, third inversion C Major Chord, F Major Chord, and second inversion C Major Chord from the fifth register. All of these chords were specifically major chords as they're often described as happy chords and commonly used all throughout music. These chords comprise the core of countless songs and are also considered easy to learn due to how simple it is to play these notes. These chords easily integrate with each other so the transition from one to the other will help create this symphony. We want to ensure that the sounds are different enough so any change in chord can be detected, even if it is subtle. The subtlety also support our idea that even the smallest interaction done can create a change whether we notice it or not.

The sound for our cactus was specifically chosen to showcase a dissonance between the plants that are easy to interact with due to how harmless they are and the cactus. These notes are meant to be similar to a piano slam where none of the notes match each other. These notes include a G and A# in the fifth register and a C, D, E, G, G#, and B in the sixth register. This register is chosen to still continue from the previous sounds, but pierce through all the other sounds and stand out. The higher the register, the higher the pitch which means the sound gets louder. Because of this, when someone approaches a cactus, they're immediately ruin the symphony. We want to use this sound to remind everyone that not everything in nature should have human intervention as we can ruin the beauty in nature itself. Even though there are 4 other plants that can be interacted with to create a beautiful soundscape, some people still purposely interact with the cactus even if they get hurt by the spikes and the soundscape gets ruined.