April 8, 2020 | The Clarion
Arts & Life
Page 5
Can plants
talk?
By Mickayla Smith
staff Writer
According to NPR, plant enthusiasts can
tune into their plants to see how they’re doing.
Using bio-sonification, devices like Music of
the Plants and Plant Wave enable plants to talk.
PlantWave grew from Data Garden started
by Joe Patitucci and Alex Tyson in 2011.
In 2012, PlantWave was born when the
Philadelphia Museum of Art invited the label
to do a demonstration at the museum.
Data Garden worked with an engineer
named Sam Cusumano, who made a device
that translated micro-conductivity on the
surface of plants into a graph that can be used
to control hardware and software synthesizers.
What came out of this collaboration was
“Data Garden Quartet” which featured four
harmonizing plants that played music.
The music produced by the plants can be
used in many different ways for many different
occasions. However, PlantWave’s goal is to
develop an awareness that plants are living
organisms.
“I think some people are very aware
that plants are sentient beings that are,
arguably, making decisions for themselves
and responding to their environment,” product
development manager of Data Garden Jon
Shapiro said. “But for a lot of people that’s
not something they think about every day. It
does allow people, and it has allowed me, to
look at other life forms and appreciate their
aliveness in a different way.”
Don’t be confused by their liveliness. They
don’t respond to things as humans do. “Plants
don’t sound like flutes,” Shapiro said. The
consumer version of the invention includes
sensors that issue small signals through the
plant, measuring variations in electrical
resistance between two points within it.
“The variation in the connection is largely
related to how much water is between
those two points, which changes a lot as
the plant is moving water around while it’s
photosynthesizing,” Shapiro said. “Then
we graphed that change as a wave, and then
we translated that wave into pitch, so then
essentially we're getting a stream of all these
pitch messages coming from the plant.” These
pitches are then sent to the device’s software
to be turned into piano notes or guitar chords.
Some plants aren’t made to produce music
because of their size or delicate nature. So,
picking the right plants to use is essential. The
sounds the plants produce is a way for them to
communicate their needs, but not to humans.
This is kind of like when our stomachs
rumble; that means we’re hungry. Plants
react to their environment and things moving
around them. That is how they produce
sounds.
Weekly
Horoscopes
By Mickayla Smith
staff Writer
Aries: Caution, don’t lose your composure.
Work on whatever you think needs fixing in
your personal life.
Taurus: Don’t feel pressured to do something
that makes you uncomfortable.
Gemini: Remember physical distancing, not
social distancing.
Cancer: You will find that people are giving
you the recognition and admiration you need to
build yourself up this week. Take this to heart.
Leo: Your finances are troubling you now. As
time passes, so will this worry.
Virgo: Focus on your well-being this week.
Your focus may be on someone else right now,
but you need to draw the attention back to
yourself for a while.
Libra: Are you fully prepared to start pursuing
one of your dreams? If so, do it! If not, wait.
Scorpio: Communication is key this week.
Maybe rehearse what you want to say before
you start talking to someone.
Sagittarius: Seek emotional shelter right now.
There is a lot on your plate and it’s starting to get
overwhelming. Take this time to work through
your emotions.
Capricorn: You now have the time to move
forward with something you have wanted to
accomplish for a while.
Aquarius: You will be able to find closure
this week with something personal you’ve been
dealing with for a long time.
Pisces: Friendship is SO important now.
Take this time to get back in touch with some
old friends that have always brought light into
your life.