TalkingTrees is a project by Bert Barten and a collaboration between artists, musicians, scientists and nature lovers.
This project lets the audience experience direct contact with nature through music.
The result is an interactive audiovisual performance. It consists of four tree sensors which are connected to a series of analogue synthesizers.
The sensors provide information about the sap flow speed, foto synthesis, volatile organic compounds and moisture.
This information determines the pitch and timbre of the synthesizer sounds and also their spatial positioning.
The sound subsequently controls a couple of graphic image generators which are projected on big video screens.
The digital data of a tree which were collected during one year have been compressed in time and translated into musical values
One month became twenty minutes (as in a time lapse film). The data of eight months (in winter this tree slept) resulted in eight musical pieces of the months april to november.
By this method of working the ego of the composer moves to the background. Now the source of the musical composition lies with the tree itself.
a project by Bert Barten
“…when you go into a forest and get very quiet and then start with ‘Deep Listening’, you will come to understand that you are connected with everything…”
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