On Creating Multimedia Interfaces for Hybrid Biological-Digital Art Installations

This paper discusses the application of real-time multimedia technologies to artworks that feature novel interfaces between human and non-human organisms (in this case plants and bacteria). Two projects are discussed: Microbial Sonorities, a real-time generative sound artwork based on bacterial voltages and machine learning, and PlantConnect, a real-time multimedia artwork that explores human-plant interaction via the human act of breathing, the bioelectrical and photosynthetic activity of plants and computational intelligence to bring the two together. Part of larger investigations into alternative models for the creation of shared experiences and understanding with the natural world, these projects explores complexity and emergent phenomena by harnessing the material agency of non-human organisms and the capacity of emerging multimedia technologies as mediums for information transmission, communication and interconnectedness between the human and non-human. While primarily focusing on technical descriptions of these projects, this paper also hopes to open up dialog about how the combination of emerging multimedia technologies and the often aleatoric unpredictability that living organisms can exhibit, can be beneficial to digital arts and entertainment applications.