Listening to Life:
Sonifying Plant Signals with Pure Data
Facilitated by:
Alizée Armet
June 13 • 2:00pm- 4:00pm
$35 — Workshop Ticket
$50 – Ticket with Sensor Kit included
Limited to 10 spots
Language of instruction: Bilingual
This workshop offers an introduction to the sonification of biological signals using plants and sensors. Participants will learn how to capture physiological data and convert it into sound using Pure Data software. The workshop explores biocomputation as an artistic practice and a tool for cross-species communication.
This two-hour workshop introduces participants to the artistic and technical process of transforming biological signals into sound. Working with plant electrodes or body sensors such as EMG, participants will explore how subtle electrical activity from living systems can become musical material. The session combines hands-on electronics, real-time sound synthesis, and critical reflection on interspecies listening.
In the second half, participants open a prepared Pure Data patch. They learn how to receive serial data, visualize live signals, and map numerical values to sonic parameters such as pitch, amplitude, noise density, or filter frequency. Through experimentation, each group develops its own mapping strategy, shaping a unique sonic ecosystem driven by muscular tension, vegetal fluctuations, or environmental micro-variations.
Exhibition Tour – 5pm
The workshop is followed by a guided tour of the exhibition Unstable Ecologies at Ada X.
Workshop Requirements
- Laptop
- Experience with Arduino and Pure Data (intermediate)
An artist-researcher who creates hybrid installations at the intersection of plastic, technology, and biology, she is also a researcher, having obtained her PhD in “Art and Technology” from the University of the Basque Country in 2021. Demystifying the myth of singularity, her practice integrates computation, 3D objects, and organic materials. She wants to question our attachment to the ecosystem, while projecting possible scenarios; she criticizes the Cartesian separation between nature and culture. Her practice attempts to “disentangle” the codes and implications of computational society. Drawing on scientific methods and artistic inspiration, she regularly collaborates with scientists and engineers to create and design her installations.
Her artistic works are presented in Europe (Tabakalera, Frac NoA, Kapelica gallery, Ars Electronica, Wrofest, Basis e.V, Foundation Hippocrene, Galerie Vivoequidem, Centro Huarte ..). In 2024 she received a prize from Artofchange21 for the price Art Eco Conception.
