The Tech behind it
Sinfonía biótica is a project based on multiple types of information collected from different living beings, on the one hand we record the physical bodies of the tree and its environment using photogrammetry techniques and radiance fields. On the other hand, we collect data from the electrical impulses of the plants and soon also from their environment (temperature, humidity, electroconductivity).
We treat this data in a way that allows us to represent both the physical appearance and part of their inner workings to create the digital personality of each one of them.
For the virtual reality experience we use the video game development platform Unreal Engine along with FMOD and LumaAI plugins to handle all this information as well as the integration with virtual reality.
For interactive installations, we collect real-time data from the biodata and process and combine it with the point clouds in TouchDesigner. For these projects we use Ableton Live to create the sound piece.
Technology
to understand
living beeings
PHYSICAL BODIES
To compile the visual scenes using photogrammetry and gaussian splatting techniques, different softwares such as Postshot and Kiri engine allow us to obtain more accurate or lighter point clouds, depending on the later use we want to give it.
These point clouds are subjected to a manual cleaning process and then connected to the rest of the data using Unreal Engine, with the LumaAI plugin and TouchDesigner.
Biodata
Electrical data from plants
Biodata - Symbioware
It is a free hardware technological device based on arduino ESP-32 that allows us to amplify the electrical signals of living beings. By connecting its electrodes to plants or fungi we can receive fluctuations in their electrical impulses and convert them into sounds, projections, changes in lights, etc.
Biodata is a free project created by Sam Cusumano, from Electricity for progress.
How does it work?
Small changes in electrical conductivity are measured between electrodes and fed into a programmable microcontroller. The changes are detected by calculations of means and standard deviations that light up LEDs and produce MIDI notes and control changes. The circuit used to detect biological galvanic conductance is based on a 555 timer configured as an astable multivibrator, similar to a simple lie detector.
The exploration and practice of Biodata Sonification can allow a student, musician, scientist or florist to listen to the secret life of plants, and understand how their tools work!
What does it all mean?
Ask a botanist, biologist, philosopher or florist or try it yourself. While there are always flourishes and strange/exciting events you hear about when interacting with a plant, we are interested in the longer sets of raw data. We are interested in better understanding how plants change over many days, cycles, seasons, and how using this type of recorded data can help measure and track plants in the wild, in the office, on the farm and in the lab under study.