Visual Sounds: Bio-Akustische Musik,  August, 2015
Eden3 – Plein Air Project, Sound of a Tree
by Collins and Goto with Chris Malcom
Curated by Georg Dietzler, presented by ON – Neue Musik Koeln, Germany
(Links to video/sound samples are below the images and texts.)

Installation detail, Neu Musik Cologne, Germany

Sound of a Tree was a specific installation designed for the ON – Neu Musik studio; the project was also a residency allowing us to live with the work. Plein Air has evolved in four iterations from hardware, to a data producing field instrument with sound capabilities, to a simplistic sound programme played by a tree; to its final sculptural form with complex sound and microscopic leaf image affected by changes to photosynthesis and transpiration in a tree leaf. The process of development and early exhibition is presented and discussed here. Iterative development to this most recent final form and function is discussed in a new book on Ecologies of Participation to be published in 2016. Below you will find an image of the installation, five separate videos w the sound made by the trees; and the original exhibition poster. The last video features the flautist Ortrud Kegel!

The leaf chamber used to measure chemical change and photosynthesis.

Close up of Plein Air with good quality audio recording.

Reiko Goto considers a more active sound session.

Detail of of live video, with saturation controlled by leaf photosynthesis.

An onsite experiment with birch leaf shadows and Plein Air in the background

2015 August: Closing concert, flute improvisation by Ortrud Kegel with a Tree