thoughtsandtalks

The idea is to detect bio feedback of plants from the okno open_green, send these data from the garden (over a radio frequency connection) into okno_inside, transform them into generative music and stream them over the okno_radio.
After a collective brainstorm, different parts of the project are setup and worked out by different people. At the end everything fits into one project.
We discussed possibilities to measure subtle activities of plants and create a human/plant interaction. We discovered that all plants in the open_green are showing a highly complex biodynamic response to their environment.
We conducted experiments to try and find out how plants react to wind, air pressure, touch, light, movement, sound etc.

1. sensors:
We were experimenting with different sensors on stems, flowers and leaves observing data and biodynamic responses. First we looked into measuring the bio resistance of the plants. We tried to build a galvanometer based on the Backster experiments.
Simultaneously we were working with stretch sensors: long thin pieces of stretch fabric were attached to the sunflower stems. When the flowers move in the wind, the fabric becomes more or less resistive and generates different data.
We worked with all kinds of conductive and natural materials used for measuring variable resistance: stretch fabric / conductive thread / graphite / metal wool / foil / wire / and the plants themselves.
We decided to work with 2 data types: the Slow Input where plants are growing and moving, changing absorbation of light and temperature (plant as actor); and the Fast Input: drumming, touching, knocking, talking, rubbing and pressing the plants (using plant as interface).

2. alternative powering:
We put small 4.5V solarpanels in serie to power arduino’s and sensors.

3. wireless connections:
The data are send via an internal radio network. We configured Xbee Radios with Xbee Shield via Serial connection (USB). Each Xbee is given an address/name/destination via AT commands. The arduinos are programmed to handle the data.

4. sonification and streaming:
The numbers we are getting in from the garden are becoming parameters and generators of our open_green sound. The data coming out of the 14 analog input streams are sonified via Supercollider create a nice ‘zen-sound’.

music from sunflowers
# Artist: Isjtar
# Title: Music for Sunflowers
# Length: 4:46 minutes (10.59 MB)
# Format: MP3 Stereo 44kHz 311Kbps (VBR)

Part 1 of the Connected Domes-workshops, the building of Geodesic Domes out of recycled materials, will be held at OKNO from august 10th till august 14th.
The workshop will be facilitated by Dirk Hendrickx, co-founder of the artist collective Maquette.
Part 2 of the Connected Domes-workshops will be led by the media artists Audrey Samson (Rotterdam) and Stefanie Wuschitz (Vienna) and takes place from august 17 till august 21st.

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“Imagine living outdoors indoors in a transparant dome, picking organically grown vegetables right in your kitchen, sleeping in a bed under luxuriant trees, comfortable regardless of the weather outside.
Your autonomous garden home is heated and cooled by the sun, which also provides electricity and heats water.
…
Your Garden of Eden captures, treats, and recycles it’s own water.
…
the plants provide the oxygen-rich, clean air of a forest.
There is no connection to city power, water or sewage systems. It is truly organic architecture.”

Excerpt of Bucky Works, Buckminster Fuller’s Ideas for Today - by Jay Baldwin, co-founder of the Whole Earth Catalog.

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Noise pollution at my place (brussels, center) as visualized by Michal Kinderlay, Czech media-artist, during his residency at okno.

During the month of august, so-on will organize for okno 2 workshops dealing with the topics of media ecology, mobile- and networked architecture.
Connected Domes #01 consists of building greenhouse geodesic domes out of recycled materials as there are: newspapers, scrap metal, twigs, bamboo …
Connected Domes #02 will populate the greenhouses with wild plants, sprouts shooting up out of homemade compost. The plants will act as a print, a mirror of the greenlife of so-on’s garden over the last year.

The plants will be powered and stuffed with sensors (touch, humidity, UV) and the 3 domes will be connected in a wireless network by arduino’s and xbees.
On the dome-structure recycled computer ventilators will be added to provide a gentle breeze to the leaves, as well as small solar panels and led lights to light up the domes at night.
A sonification of the gathered data via Maxmsp and PD will turn the connected domes into musical instruments.

The ‘Alternative Economy Cultures’ (alt.econ.cult) programme on April 3rd & 5th brings together leading international and Finnish thinkers, cultural practitioners and activists, to present alternative economic visions.
The seminar aims to tackle not just the financial, but the social, cultural, institutional, human, material, emotional and intellectual forms of capital. Not just about individual gain, boosting, balancing or bail-outs, but common good, peer-to-peer, shared wealth and appropriate reward for effort involved.
Cultural production and social-networking, especially the digital online versions of the recent decade, have promoted new ideas of wealth, opportunity, scarcity, and exchange. Importantly, it also reminds us of old ones. Surrounding those ideas are developing practices, cultures and entrpreneurship.

all info: seminar alternative economy cultures

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A free newspaper gives background information on the Politics of Change-project (PoC).
An artistic research project driven by grassroots activism, eco-technology and networks of women to build integrated and sustainable relationships between people, their environment and technology.
How did we start, why and where? What is the relation between partners in this north/south/east/west project?
The magazine is printed on recycled paper with vegetable inks, and all collaborators are listed on the backside.

If you don’t manage to come by at one of the public presentations, you can download the magazine in pdf version - here.