Flora Self
Katharina Groß
Flora Self is a plant-generated sound installation.
neue raeume; built a device with which the electrical conductance of plants is measured, translated into MIDI notes and interpreted by a synthesizer. In this media-technological way the vitality of the plants is sonified. In this artistic observer system, the connection between plant-generated sounds, physiological processes and environmental conditions is examined and the media-ecological correlations of the human, technological and plant species become perceptible. The aesthetic dimension of the media situation reveals the living conditions of a plant world that has come under pressure due to the changed climatic conditions. As a result of environmental stimuli – such as drought stress or human touch – the conductance of the plant and thus the sound changes. By touching the plants, visitors can interactively influence the sound landscape.
In her live performance, the artist and researcher Katharina Groß will guide a mediation and visionary, traveling through the secret world of plants, their intelligence and sensitivity. Based on historical plant talks and experimental settings, she outlines a diegesis of future living and technological infrastructures based on relationships of care, respect and interdependence.
credits: Björn Bergelt (Hardware-developer), Marcus Degenkolbe (Arduino-Software-developer), Peteris Ziepel (Audio engineering)
Katharina Groß is an artist and media science researcher living in Dresden. In her texts, installations and performances she deals with the invisible, the latent, the indeterminate and ambivalent in intimate systems and techno-aesthetic events. Inspired by socio-technological interactions, the history of technology and media ecologies, she currently focuses on processes that lie below, outside or independent of human perceptual habits, but which transform them. Groß investigates how the medium not only transmits, but also filters and co-constitutes a structure of meaning. The virtual and the physical overlap by (re)animating personal and environmental data, whereby the boundaries between the fictive and the actual dissolve.
Groß is co-founder of the collaboration neue raeume; whose fellows share an interest in questioning technological developments artistically, playfully and critically. In changing line-ups, neue raeume; works as a self-organized and interdisciplinary team, testing and exploring the artistic-technical possibilities in software for virtual environments and sensor technology.