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Trockenschwimmen: The Biotec Orchestra
A workshop-laboratory with Olivia Oyama, KH Jeron, Haco, Kaffe Matthews, and Don Hill.
monday - friday 10:00-16:00
Trockenschwimmen is a series at ausland delving into tech bricolage, sharing knowledge, learning by doing, and developing ideas together. At the Trockenschwimmen Biotec Lab we will build The Biotec Orchestra in 5 days – a sound installation of plants, software, self-made electronic instruments, and lights, an electro-acoustic jungle: Connecting, amplifying, generating, listening, manipulating, growing, playing, mixing rotting trees, potato oscillators, aeolian harps, mushrooms in glasses, electromagnetic fields, wind singing in leaves, a diorama, piezos, wires, moss, telluric currents, sensors, cactuses, photosynthesis, and field recordings.
The workshop consists of 5 modules by Olivia Oyama, KH Jeron, Haco, Kaffe Matthews, and Don Hill. The artists will work together with the workshop participants on the respective modules. We’ll work parallelly and interact. You can switch between modules.
On the 14th of December there is a presentation of The Biotec Orchestra at 9pm. On the 13th of December there is a Biotec Lab radio show moderated by SissiFM, broadcast from ausland.
The workshop is open to participants of all levels. In order to know what to expect please tell us in brief about your experience and interests: Technical/electrical knowledge, bricolage / tinkering – have you worked with circuits, sensors, self-made instruments etc. before? Software – do you use software? Do you program? What applications / languages? What do you know about plants?
The workshop consists of 5 modules by Olivia Oyama, KH Jeron, Haco, Kaffe Matthews, and Don Hill. The artists will work together with the workshop participants on the respective modules. We’ll work parallelly and interact. You can switch between modules.
On the 14th of December there is a presentation of The Biotec Orchestra at 9pm. On the 13th of December there is a Biotec Lab radio show moderated by SissiFM, broadcast from ausland.
Please note that the number of participants is restricted to 12 persons
Application deadline is the 1st of December
Please apply at trockenschwimmen@ausland-berlin.de
Workshop languages are English and German
Participation fee: €50
Modules:
KH Jeron Interacting with plants to create electronic music
Do plants communicate with other species? We will utilize electronic sensors to graph subtle changes occurring within the physiology of plants. Special galvanometers sense subtle changes in electric conductance across the leaf surface. The algorithms transform this fluctuating data stream into notes and control values. We then use these notes and controls to trigger and modify sounds that were sourced from participating artists and musicians. In a mechanical sense, the plants are “controlling” the sounds that guests hear in the installation. We´re graphing the changes in a plant’s internal state in a way which is knowable to humans, using sound. Sounds will be curated in order to create an atmosphere which will not be necessarily pleasing or relaxing to the viewer. Raw data has a sound of its own. But there will be sounds which convey changes occurring within the plants in a recognizable way. The soundscape produced will probably be affected by guests walking through the installation.
Olivia Oyama Botanical Choir
The module lead by Olivia Oyama will attempt to record the circadian rhythm of common plants through the differences of bioelectrical activity relative to daylight. Over a period of several days, plants will be wired with EKG electrodes and needles and datalogged with PICAXE microcontrollers. Participants will assemble microcontroller dataloggers, interface them with plants then explore ways of sonically representing that data through open source software (Pure Data). Finally, the timbre and arrangement of this modules botanical choir will be collectively designed by workshop participants in collaboration with Haco, the Biotec Orchestra’s conductor. Basic soldering skills and a computer with latest version of Pure Data Extended are recommended.
Don Hill Deadwood sings slowly
Trees are as rooted in the sky, as they are in the soil; they are receptive to VLF (very low frequency) transmissions from distant lightning and space weather such as electromagnetic pulses associated with the aurora borealis. In 1978, Nature, a scientific journal of considerable reputation made a case for the conservation of trees as a public safety issue. They are a tool to predict earthquakes, the authors said, "or, more specifically, the use of pairs of electrodes inserted into trees, serve as ULF (ultra low frequency) receiving antennas." For VLF, even “a lifeless structure”, a telephone pole for instance, the U.S. army reported in 2002, “was generally superior in signal level to a live tree or the military whip antenna”. For the Biotech Orchestra workshop, we´ll derive low-frequency output from rigged dead trees and blend it with received output from live trees to create a binaural beat in real time.
Haco The score
During the workshop Haco will develop a score along with a orchestra building process that can be performed. She will explore musical possibilities with everyone who is curious in using this process as an "instrument". She´ll include aspects of improvisation, chance operations, amplification, site specification, sampling, and other challenging elements, collaborating with the other artists and workshop participants in the Biotec Orchestra project.
Kaffe Matthews Conversation with plants
Extremely curious and inspired at the possibility of working directly with plants and their micro activities within an orchestra of multi-skilled artists. Collaboration and composition within a multi-speaker environment will be where priorities lie. Process will be open and live within the vitality of such a living environment therefore. Experiments will include making live processing experiments to feed back into plants. This will include language and text with a view to creating or hearing another language made by plants. Use and development and listening. Always listening. Vibration will be an essential language on a macro and micro level, of sending and receiving and sculpting within this collaborative environment. Creating and looking for ways of structuring the mass, the network, as well as the space, the moments for the individual voice.
This event will be streamed.