The Anchorage Museum presents “Arabidopsis Symphony” by Fillip Studio

Fri, Apr 5 - Fri, Aug 9  2024

Anchorage Museum - San Francisco Consulate Region

"Arabidopsis Symphony" uses augmented reality, music, and real-time local data to translate the invisible processes of plants into an ever-changing immersive experience.

From April 5 until August 9, 2024, the Anchorage Museum presents Arabidopsis Symphony by Fillip Studios in Art of the North Galleries, Third Floor, East Wing.

There is more to a plant than meets the human eye. Arabidopsis Symphony uses augmented reality, music, and real-time local data to translate the invisible processes of a plant into an ever-changing immersive experience.

A project by Netherlands-based Fillip Studios, the installation is based on real-time, location-based data collected from Arabidopsis thaliana plants in Europe that is translated into augmented reality and music. With the scan of a QR code, visitors walk through a field of human-sized plants and witness in image and sound how real environmental changes directly influence their growth.

The Arabidopsis thaliana is an inconspicuous plant that occurs in temperate regions of world, but grows and develops differently due to local climate, weather, and soil conditions. Through complex adaptations in genes and hormones, the plant directly responds to changes in its environment day or night, rain or sunshine.

A deeper dive into Arabidopsis Symphony: Sander van der Krol about plant research

In view of the project Arabidopsis Symphony — which visualizes the hidden growth processes of plants — Fillip Studios wanted to shed some light on the extensive research done by Sander van der Krol (Wageningen Plant Research). Next to technical details about plants and research methods, we asked him about his vision of plant life. Why is he so fascinated by it, and how did Arabidopsis Symphony come about? The text below is based on an interview with Prof. Dr. Van der Krol, courtesy of Fillip Studios.

Boring plants?

Compared to animals, plants are often considered boring by people, because they are sessile and do not display any obvious dynamics. However, on the inside, plants are as dynamic as animals and perhaps even more so. Unlike animals — which can walk away from adverse conditions — plants have to cope with changes in their environment by adjusting their metabolism and growth. Scientists utilize different techniques to measure and visualize these internal processes in plants. For instance, the daily changes in the activity of genes that are involved in the growth of the plant can be visualized by fusing a gene promoter (the switch that determines when and where it is active) with the gene from a firefly that encodes a protein that produces light.

Although internal changes are happening within seconds or minutes, we need to speed up time to be able to see the daily changes inside the plants. But when we do, we start to appreciate how dynamic plants really are. See, for instance, how these plants ‘dance’ when they start to bloom.

Glowing plants for research

To study plant behavior, scientists prefer using practical plant species. Consequently, the small and common weed Arabidopsis Thaliana has become the first model plant for which the entire genome was already sequenced in the year 2000. However, knowing all the genes does not make it easier to understand how a plant works. For that, the scientist also needs information on when and where the genes are active.

Plants that contain the firefly gene (added artificially) produce a very weak light. Such ‘reporter plants’ can be monitored over time and, subsequently, tell us when a certain gene shows activity. More importantly, we can now change the environment by playing with temperature and light conditions and, in that way, visualize how a specific gene responds to such changes. The genes that were chosen to couple with the firefly gene are key genes involved in the plant’s growth, perception of light, and biological clock. Publications about the analysis of these glowing plants — and how they helped to reveal how gene activity in the plant responds to temperature and light — can be found on PubMed.

Making graphs and data tangible

Research with glowing plants resulted in hundreds of videos that show the daily rhythms of gene activity and how environmental signals cause subtle changes to these rhythms. When shown simply as a video, it can be quite difficult to really notice these changes and compare how different genes react under different circumstances. Of course, scientists also collect their data in graphs, but for most people, those graphs are only an incomprehensible code language.

From data to sound

To make complex patterns understandable, it helps to use different visualisation techniques. In 2016, the idea was born to convert the graph of a growing and glowing plant into sound, making the subtle changes in the graph audible. With this concept in mind, plant physiologist Sander van der Krol (Wageningen University & Research) started his search for a sound artist that could help him convert his videos and graphs into music.

Evolution of the concept

The first product of this unique collaboration was the construction of the installation Bio Orchestra, a ‘plant organ’ with growing Arabidopsis plants. In Bio Orchestra, different gene activities produce different sound outputs, and passers-by can participate by modulating the sound. The feedback from the audience proved to be very useful in developing the first algorithms that converted scientific data from the Arabidopsis Thaliana to audio. These algorithms resulted in a musical composition by the composer Falk Hubner from Conservatory Utrecht, which was played live at the InScience film festival in Nijmegen. The plan was, back then, to tour around the world with an orchestra. But then Covid-19 came around the corner, and for obvious reasons, the project came to a halt.

Arabidopsis Symphony: a deep dive into the inner world of plants

With the support of Gemeente Arnhem, Fillip Studios was able to take a step back and adjust the concept to a more hybrid version, combining the digital with the real world. This led to the current concept of Arabidopsis Symphony; a combination of augmented reality and generative music. Powered by real-time local data of weather conditions and time of day, the digital plants of Arabidopsis Symphony react to their environment just like real plants do, but in a way that is accessible to everyone (not only scientists). The sound design is now done by Fillip Studios’ sound designer Siebe de Vries, and makes use of a selection of gene measurements from ‘glowing plants’.

Credits

Concept & Design by Fillip Studios
Digital design & realization by Superposition
Plant research by Sander van der Krol of Wageningen University & Research
Organic Iterations is made possible by:
Gemeente Arnhem, Eindhoven Design District
Internationalization: World Design Weeks, Creative Industries Fund NL, Dutch Culture USA (a program of the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York), Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Japan

About Fillip Studios

Fillip Studios is an art and design studio working on a wide range of projects. They create textiles that make music when touched, bring plants to life with augmented reality and practice glass blowing with 3D printed objects. Fillip Studios works from idea to realization, using the latest technologies and collaborating with partners in science, culture and business. Their projects can be seen from New York to Tokyo and at their base in Arnhem where they work with a team of creative professionals from various disciplines.