A PhytlSigns device took a trip to the Amazon…
Back in 2019, when the world was a different place, Russian artist Olga Kisseleva took a PhytlSigns device to the Amazonian rainforest…Olga started the bio-art EDEN project in 2012 to explore the intersection of art, and biology in indigenous communities in Brazil.
Here is an excerpt from an article about the artist’s discoveries while using our device (translated from French).
Embodying an invisible communication
“EDEN is based on a disturbing scientific observation: trees communicate with each other and with their environment. This ability allows them to regulate their vital mechanisms, promote pollination, adjust their growth and repel potential aggressors by emitting different kinds of signals and molecules. They don’t use words but scents, adding molecules together in the same way that we add up letters to make a word. Trees transmit very sophisticated, precise and complex information to other trees and to other living beings, such as predatory insects. Similar to a network, this communication is neither verbal nor visual.”
“The sensors of the PhytlSigns system, attached to the plants, allow measurements and calculation of the electrical signal composed of different natural charges: in other words, metaphorically or poetically speaking, to really hear the inner voice of the tree. EDEN gives voice to the trees, creates a digital visualisation of an invisible dialogue, of a particular flow of information through technology.”
Click here to read the full article (in French).