University Honors

Data sonification is the translation of any set of data into sound. There are functionalapplications of this, such as heart monitors and morse code. In this project, I wanted to delve intothe artistic application of data sonification. Specifically, I was most intrigued by devices thatintegrate data from plants. Some of these devices include MIDISprout, Music of the Plants, andsome modular synthesizers. Inspired by these products, my goal in this project was to engineer adevice that takes the bioelectrical resistance of plants and converts it into music within a digitalaudio workstation.Once finalizing the device, I recorded four tracks of raw data. These four tracks alltotalled to approximately fifteen minutes, two of which coming from a healthy snake plant andanother from a snake plant on the brink of death. One of the two tracks per each plant was aMIDI recording of the plant in isolation, while the other was a recording of the plant beinginteracted with. This was to observe how the MIDI data changed depending on how often it wastouched and how healthy it was.This paper discusses in detail the importance of integrating data sonification intocontemporary musical pieces, the process of engineering the device, and the compositionalapproach to the recordings.