Performing otherness.
After Plein Air, we were interested in developing a pair of portable, performative instruments that would allow us to work outdoors and develop new practices and methods to push our work with trees in new ways. HAKOTO was designed in 2022 as a pair of ‘body instruments’ that we wear to measure and hear indications of life force in tree leaves. In 2023, we extended the system to engage sphagnum moss and other plants in peatlands.
HAKATO monitors two sets of specific data: airflow, carbon dioxide, humidity, leaf temperature, air temperature and sunlight. There are two sets of sensors monitoring both the atmospheric baseline and the actual conditions at the surface of a leaf. There is a standard mathematical method that indicates the rate of photosynthesis and transpiration in a tree leaf by comparing the two data sets. The data is fed into a sound program created by Chris Malcolm, which processes real-time data, producing unique and dynamic sounds, reflecting atmospheric conditions and the metabolism of different plants.
LEER Exhibition at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre.