Miya Masaoka has worked with Madagascan cockroaches, the electrical signals from the bodies of ten naked Asian men, and the sounds of swarming bees.

In Pieces for Plants, a plant’s real-time responses to its physical environment are translated to sound. Highly sensitive electrodes are attached to the leaves of a philodendron. People move their hands around the leaves and hear the plant speak back to them: the voice seemingly the plant’s physiological response to interactions. During the piece, the plant is brought to a range of physical/psychological states, from calm to agitation.

Pieces for Plants suggests that plants have an awareness, are part of our living network of beings, and can communicate with us if we learn how. Versions of the piece have also been presented in a musical setting in which the plant participates as a member and soloist within an instrumental ensemble. For Blur of the Otherworldly, the artist has set the piece free for visitors to navigate other participants’ compositional conversation with the plant and listen to their dialogues.

Video on the website.

Blur of the Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal, Center for Art and Visual Culture, UMBC, Baltimore, October 20, 2005 – December 17, 2005.

Photo by Donald Swearington.