PMX32-3DU
Web
2021
rb.gy/r0sleg
Image modified from Kikusui Electronics Corporation. Makers of power control, testing and measurement instruments. Product number PMX32-3DU.
Blank instagram account. All numbers kept to zero. Identity deconstruction and the end of endless growth. No follower, no post. Becoming nobody in particular. No follower, no need to be followed. No post, no need to advertise.
Image modified from Kikusui Electronics Corporation. Makers of power control, testing and measurement instruments. Product number PMX32-3DU.
Blank instagram account. All numbers kept to zero. Identity deconstruction and the end of endless growth. No follower, no post. Becoming nobody in particular. No follower, no need to be followed. No post, no need to advertise.
Trauma Response
Duplex AIR, Lisbon
Nov 11 – Dec 03
Group exhibition with Catarina Simão | Filipe Cortez | Juliana Matsumura | Maria Máximo | Marie Antoinette | Theodore Ereira-Guyer | Yota Ayaan
Curated by Judith Hofer
Trauma Response sheds light on a variety of ways of responding to trauma. It shows the contrasting sides: the suffering, and also possibilities of coping and the beauty that can emerge. How do we respond to trauma? Like the Jacaranda tree, that blooms twice a year in Portugal - in Spring and again in Autumn, when it is Spring in its origin Brazil - we also might evolve and create something beautiful.
The video projection The Basket tells the story of a fictional protagonist, who came in contact with the topic of telepathy. Rather than evolving technologically towards artificial intelligence, Ayaan’s writings feel out other options. Such as, that there might still be much to discover within the realms of human intelligence.
On the floor, underneath the projector and horn speaker are various Hericium Erinaceus specimens. As these creatures communicate through mycorrhizal networks, we also communicate and perceive through invisible networks. Nowadays these phenomena can be partially quantified by quantum physics, in this case through the lens of quantum entanglement.
Referring to natural intelligence, networks and cognition, Ayaan’s work calls attention to the fact, that, in the same way, we only understand bits and pieces of plant consciousness and communication, we are also just beginning to grasp the operating principles of our own.
Duplex AIR, Lisbon
Nov 11 – Dec 03
Group exhibition with Catarina Simão | Filipe Cortez | Juliana Matsumura | Maria Máximo | Marie Antoinette | Theodore Ereira-Guyer | Yota Ayaan
Curated by Judith Hofer
Trauma Response sheds light on a variety of ways of responding to trauma. It shows the contrasting sides: the suffering, and also possibilities of coping and the beauty that can emerge. How do we respond to trauma? Like the Jacaranda tree, that blooms twice a year in Portugal - in Spring and again in Autumn, when it is Spring in its origin Brazil - we also might evolve and create something beautiful.
The video projection The Basket tells the story of a fictional protagonist, who came in contact with the topic of telepathy. Rather than evolving technologically towards artificial intelligence, Ayaan’s writings feel out other options. Such as, that there might still be much to discover within the realms of human intelligence.
On the floor, underneath the projector and horn speaker are various Hericium Erinaceus specimens. As these creatures communicate through mycorrhizal networks, we also communicate and perceive through invisible networks. Nowadays these phenomena can be partially quantified by quantum physics, in this case through the lens of quantum entanglement.
Referring to natural intelligence, networks and cognition, Ayaan’s work calls attention to the fact, that, in the same way, we only understand bits and pieces of plant consciousness and communication, we are also just beginning to grasp the operating principles of our own.
Plant Spirit
MHNC-UP
2021
Museu História Natural
MHNC-UP, Porto
Yota Ayaan
Jackson Gore
Video installation: fraxinus excelsior trees, metal frame, home office desk, home office chair, fans, LED lights, sound desk, laptop, power cords, speakers.
Multimedia home office within an illuminated greenhouse structure, plays on a laptop and industrial speakers video recordings of four talks from plant communicators. Featuring community ritual leader Miguel Rivera, researcher and evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, herbalist Mark Jensen and sculptor and indigenous food activist Roxanne Swentzell.
Duration: 1:04:00 loop
Transcript
At first, and I’m sure you know this, it’s almost utterly overwhelming. Because you suddenly realise that we’re this one little arrogant upstart species, you know, and we’re surrounded by a vibrant, alive, interactive matrix of life. That’s been here for hundreds of millions of years. And we’ve been lost in our thoughts. We’ve been lost in this misguided sense of superiority. And this way that has lead us to a profound sense of separation. In a sense we need to honour the findings of contemporary botany and phytochemistry. We need to honour the folklore and traditional use of medicinal plants. We need to honour the indigenous teachings of plants. But there is this other section of that wheel that involves the dreaming place. It involves that place we call spirit. That place were we find ourselves touched and moved by our encounter with a plant. By an other than human part of the natural world. And that’s where that aliveness enters that wheel. It’s the motor of that whole wheel. That drives it. – Mark Jensen for Plant Spirit
MHNC-UP, Porto
Yota Ayaan
Jackson Gore
Video installation: fraxinus excelsior trees, metal frame, home office desk, home office chair, fans, LED lights, sound desk, laptop, power cords, speakers.
Multimedia home office within an illuminated greenhouse structure, plays on a laptop and industrial speakers video recordings of four talks from plant communicators. Featuring community ritual leader Miguel Rivera, researcher and evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano, herbalist Mark Jensen and sculptor and indigenous food activist Roxanne Swentzell.
Duration: 1:04:00 loop
Transcript
At first, and I’m sure you know this, it’s almost utterly overwhelming. Because you suddenly realise that we’re this one little arrogant upstart species, you know, and we’re surrounded by a vibrant, alive, interactive matrix of life. That’s been here for hundreds of millions of years. And we’ve been lost in our thoughts. We’ve been lost in this misguided sense of superiority. And this way that has lead us to a profound sense of separation. In a sense we need to honour the findings of contemporary botany and phytochemistry. We need to honour the folklore and traditional use of medicinal plants. We need to honour the indigenous teachings of plants. But there is this other section of that wheel that involves the dreaming place. It involves that place we call spirit. That place were we find ourselves touched and moved by our encounter with a plant. By an other than human part of the natural world. And that’s where that aliveness enters that wheel. It’s the motor of that whole wheel. That drives it. – Mark Jensen for Plant Spirit
( = )
The use of acoustic emissions (AE) in plant physiological research dates back to the year 1966, when it was discovered that petioles of leaves under drought stress emit audible vibrations. The vibrations were recorded by audio sound transducers. The past couple of years have resulted in rapid developments in microelectronics leading to new advancements in the AE technique applied to plants. High performance acquisition systems are now available that can record and store waveforms from multiple channels at high sample frequencies.
— Adapted from “From hydraulics to acoustics in drought-induced cavitation in plants” by Niels Baerdemaeker, PhD thesis supervised by Kathy Steppe, University of Ghent, 2018.
The use of acoustic emissions (AE) in plant physiological research dates back to the year 1966, when it was discovered that petioles of leaves under drought stress emit audible vibrations. The vibrations were recorded by audio sound transducers. The past couple of years have resulted in rapid developments in microelectronics leading to new advancements in the AE technique applied to plants. High performance acquisition systems are now available that can record and store waveforms from multiple channels at high sample frequencies.
— Adapted from “From hydraulics to acoustics in drought-induced cavitation in plants” by Niels Baerdemaeker, PhD thesis supervised by Kathy Steppe, University of Ghent, 2018.
Plant Data
MHNC-UP
2021
Museu História Natural
MHNC-UP, Porto
Yota Ayaan
Mariana Sottomayor
Stefaan Van Leuven
Pushing back on biosensing techniques to open new ideas on plant acoustics with latest data acquistion technology from the Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Ghent University Belgium.
Four-channel audio installation, Fraxinus excelsior trees,
sound desks, laptops, power cords, stand, speakers
Duration: 24:00:00
Photography: Carlos Campos
Press release
Through an artist-in-residence at Faculdade de Ciências FCUP Yota Ayaan worked with Mariana Sottomayor, a Professor of Cell Biology developing research in leaf cell physiology of a medicinal plant at CIBIO-InBIO to find new data on plant harmonics. In their research they found a long history in biosensing techniques met with constant doubt and debate at its scientific validity. Going further they found the relatively new field of acoustic emissions (AE) acquistion in plants and the work of Professor Kathy Steppe from the Laboratory of Plant Ecology at Ghent University, one of the worlds leading laboratories of AE detection in plants.
In their conversations Steppe suggested that “actually the role of the artist here is necessary, we must attempt to convert this AE data, to interpret it in order to render it accessible”. The AEs have never been recorded as sound, only numerical data. The laboratory provided data records taken from the ash tree or Fraxinus excelsior, featured exclusively in the exhibition. Ayaan then worked in collaboration with Stefaan Van Leuven (Soulwax) on data interpretation and produced a multi-channel, twenty-four hour looped musical score.
The data structures are complex and convert to something not like human music. There are two sound systems at work, both based on accurate data but extruded into two contrasting time signatures. The first system tracks thousands of sound events, while the second system is concerned with the solar path where the sound arcs in and out of the piece over a duration of 12 hours. This solar arc is significant in the data records and composed at a smaller scale than the first, based on one AE event.
MHNC-UP, Porto
Yota Ayaan
Mariana Sottomayor
Stefaan Van Leuven
Pushing back on biosensing techniques to open new ideas on plant acoustics with latest data acquistion technology from the Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Ghent University Belgium.
Four-channel audio installation, Fraxinus excelsior trees,
sound desks, laptops, power cords, stand, speakers
Duration: 24:00:00
Photography: Carlos Campos
Press release
Through an artist-in-residence at Faculdade de Ciências FCUP Yota Ayaan worked with Mariana Sottomayor, a Professor of Cell Biology developing research in leaf cell physiology of a medicinal plant at CIBIO-InBIO to find new data on plant harmonics. In their research they found a long history in biosensing techniques met with constant doubt and debate at its scientific validity. Going further they found the relatively new field of acoustic emissions (AE) acquistion in plants and the work of Professor Kathy Steppe from the Laboratory of Plant Ecology at Ghent University, one of the worlds leading laboratories of AE detection in plants.
In their conversations Steppe suggested that “actually the role of the artist here is necessary, we must attempt to convert this AE data, to interpret it in order to render it accessible”. The AEs have never been recorded as sound, only numerical data. The laboratory provided data records taken from the ash tree or Fraxinus excelsior, featured exclusively in the exhibition. Ayaan then worked in collaboration with Stefaan Van Leuven (Soulwax) on data interpretation and produced a multi-channel, twenty-four hour looped musical score.
The data structures are complex and convert to something not like human music. There are two sound systems at work, both based on accurate data but extruded into two contrasting time signatures. The first system tracks thousands of sound events, while the second system is concerned with the solar path where the sound arcs in and out of the piece over a duration of 12 hours. This solar arc is significant in the data records and composed at a smaller scale than the first, based on one AE event.
Study 4PD
MHNC-UP
2021
Museu História Natural
MHNC-UP, Port0
Yota Ayaan
Stefaan Van Leuven
2–Channel audio installation, sound desk, laptop, power cords, stands, speakers
Duration: 9:00
Photography: Carlos Campos
An experimental sound installation consisting of four freestanding human-sized speakers facing each other. This piece is a preliminary sketch of Plant Data, a free interpretation of what plant sounds could be. The result is a dreamlike, cosmic and enveloping music. The sounds are slow, soft and vibrant. They mingle with the songs of birds and the wind that resonates between the branches of the trees of the Jardim Botânico. The large window, open to the outside, lets sounds and smells enter the exhibition. This intersection between natural and cultural, art and science, creates a doorway into the green world.
– Plant Data, Beyond our Understanding of Plant Communication by Alice Bonnot 22.07.2021
MHNC-UP, Port0
Yota Ayaan
Stefaan Van Leuven
2–Channel audio installation, sound desk, laptop, power cords, stands, speakers
Duration: 9:00
Photography: Carlos Campos
An experimental sound installation consisting of four freestanding human-sized speakers facing each other. This piece is a preliminary sketch of Plant Data, a free interpretation of what plant sounds could be. The result is a dreamlike, cosmic and enveloping music. The sounds are slow, soft and vibrant. They mingle with the songs of birds and the wind that resonates between the branches of the trees of the Jardim Botânico. The large window, open to the outside, lets sounds and smells enter the exhibition. This intersection between natural and cultural, art and science, creates a doorway into the green world.
– Plant Data, Beyond our Understanding of Plant Communication by Alice Bonnot 22.07.2021