POT :: Plant Opera
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About the Plant Opera

Plant opera is an interdisciplinary, science-art project that believes in transflorism (analogy to transhumanism). We want to give plants the opportunity to express themselves by providing them with a voice, the ability to write and even to create images. To do this we developed a system of sensors allowing us to translate the real-time data expression from plants into sounds, texts and visuals.

Plant opera exists in two forms - installation and opera (both indoor and open-air). In the opera human performers (singer, dancer and two performers) lead a fragile dialogue with the plant performers, establishing communication through speech, song and body language.

The installation is a performance by the plants alone, that continues throughout the night and day... 

This hybrid work is inspired by current scientific research on the themes of bioethics, plant consciousness, neurobiology. like every opera, it is  about life, love and death.

plant opera

Why opera?

Opera is a special kind of interdisciplinary art form that exists in a four dimensional space and embraces all aspects of human nature.

As in life the operatic structure and dramaturgy is always built around two major themes - love and death. For us love is thrilling, death is destructive and time slips away very quickly. But flora exist in completely different categories of time. One word can last a day. One breath can take until the new moon. Here there is no death, only sharing and resurrection through beautiful decadence. Love is infinite. 

Everything can speak, just in their own different way, in another language, frequency, in a different rhythm, about other problems. But everything can speak.

The aspect particularly interesting in the Opera for the plants that involves performers (singers, dancers, ac-tors) is its fragile communication element and visibility of interpretation delicacy, that rediscovers not only the problematic of human/nature relationships but also human to human behaviour. How can I understand nature if don’t understand other human being, no matter if he speaks my language or not? It is about the them, it is about our relationships, but mainly it about who we are here.We are more communicating/transferring information and avoiding the dialogue, listening or drifting on the level of sensations and empathy. The nature language.

The other side of communication is interpretation: what percentage of the translated is coming from the source or the reinterpreted by the translator. Even project itself is questionable on that level: we do receive real data and interpretations, but our in-terpretation is always human, we search similar models (forcing for example anthropomorphism) and the sequence of things through our logic impose on us stories that are really opposed to reality.

plant opera


Important information:
We use only genuine real-time signals from the living organisms.
The system is harmless to them.