New Air

Ongoing Series

Single Channel Video, Plant Hormones, UCLA Botanical Gardens

Shown in conjunction with Telluric Vibration, for Ars Electronica 2020 

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Air is an unspoken and invisible element that carries within itself matter, organisms, vibrations, and unique forms of language. Communication systems of the plant variety depend on air to harness ethereal compounds and carry their messages to populations of their kind and occasionally, other species. Messages of pollination, dormancy, invasion, caution, and movement. They are acutely sensitive to the world around them, harnessing abilities to absorb and decode their changing environments. Senses that reach beyond much of human understanding.

 

Connecting with the somatic languages of plants and other forms of life takes on a new hue when we begin to acknowledge the limitations of sight and its translation into the verbal, while much of communication and connection depends on intuiting or non-verbal cues.

 

New Air considers interspecies, and interspatial communication through the medium of air and video. By harnessing and releasing plant hormones into the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Gardens,  the piece activates new channels for heightened human sensitivity to the environment. Through the release of volatile compounds into the air, the emotions and needs of plants travel.

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