PlantWave

PlantWave is a device created by company Data Garden, an arts organization and independent record label formed by Joe Patitucci and Alex Tyson in Philadelphia in 2011. Launched in 2019, PlantWave detects a plant’s biorhythms and turns them into music that you can listen to. PlantWave’s earliest origins come from an art exhibit in 2012 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art showcasing the music of Patitucci and Tyson, who, with the help of their snake plant, played a set of four songs, with the snake plant controlling the lighting and general “ambiance”. The plant was hooked up to a device measuring and modelling the plant’s biorhythms, the light fluctuating with the rhythms.

Data Garden evolved into a company that builds data sonification systems, creating real-time music experiences for wearables, sensors, and headsets. PlantWave was launched in 2019 as a consumer product. There are still small sensor pads attached to leaves that are fed into a small box, but the waves are now modeled into instrumental sounds that match specific wavelengths of the plant’s biorhythms. All that needs to be done is to attach two sensors to the plant’s leaves, and then PlantWave connects to the accompanying phone app or audio setup to play the plant’s unique sound. Most users play the music on their smartphone. A

Unlike Project Florence, a Microsoft project that translates a plant’s biorhythms into human speech, PlantWave translates the plants’ signals into music. Plantwave is truly a unique way to connect with your houseplants or plants in the wild.

To listen to plants making music, visit https://www.datagarden.org/. If you don’t want to get the app, you can listen to plants stream music for free, at: https://www.plants.fm/.

PlantWave. (2020). “How it works.”https://www.plantwave.com/home/#how-it-works

Pardes, Arielle. (2019, Sep. 25). “Let Your Plants Play Music, and Gardens of Sound Will Bloom.” Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/plantwave-music/

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