Presented as part of the Geneva Art Week, the sound performance ‘Sessrúmnir’ by young composer and sound artist Sergei Leonov explores the possibilities of communication between musicians and plants through sound.

To this end, several technical devices have been created that capture changes in the electrical resistance of plants and generate a real-time diagram. Researchers working on a project entitled ‘Biodata Sonification’ have discovered that changes in electrical resistance vary from plant to plant depending on the time of day, soil moisture, light intensity and stress levels (which are influenced, for example, by physical injury or exposure to noise).

The information received in real time via sensors is used by the artist to create complex sound waveforms to synthesise an individual timbre, and even to control the form of a piece of music.

Image © Sergei Leonov