[-empyre-] Fwd: June on empyre now open for discussion!

[Natasha Myers]

Hi all,
just in case Jo Simalaya's post didn't come through for you...this is a reply to Murat!
best,
natasha

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: jsa <jo.simalaya at gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 11:45 AM
> Subject: Re: June on empyre now open for discussion!
> To: empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> 
> 
> Hi Murat, thank you for your questions.  I'm glad to share my work with empyre participants and appreciate the support of my project.
> 
> In response to a) "The music the leaves play, the sounds they make, are they programmed by you? Could you elaborate? Are these sounds generated are by the leaves or programmed by you and go through the leaves' mediation?"
> 
> > I have programmed the sounds.  During my research process, I travelled to the Cordillera mountain region of the Philippines to meet with indigeneous elders, scholars and what Katrin Guia names as "Culture Bearers".  My purpose was to inquire how artists can incorporate an ethical code of conduct when working with Indigeneous Knowledges Systems and Practices (IKSP).  
> 
> I was able to listen and get permission to make sound recordings of the Hudhud, an epic chant sung by the Ifugao People to mark harvest season, deaths, and other historical events. I also recorded indigenous instruments made of brass and bamboo materials. Those are the sounds that play when people reach out to the plants. This action is a metaphor for a reconnection to our indigenous selves. Author and educator Lee Maracle of the Sto:loh Nation, teaches that language and culture are never truly lost.  We are simply disconnected.  One strategy is to learn the socio-political reasons why we are disconnected then reach out with one word, one vowel, one sound.
> 
> In response to b) "The plants seem sensitive different people's energy.  Some people need to actually touch the plant to make a connection; some can just hover above the plant; some can just enter the room and the plants immediately start to sing."
> In the case of people who when entering the room the plants immediately start to sing, do plants stop singing when the same people leave the room?"
> 
> > Yes, in one instance I was showing the exhibition in a closed space at OCADU.  I was standing a few feet away from the plants talking to a group of students visiting for our annual graduate exhibition.  The plants were not singing.
> 
> A woman entered the doorway, which was about 10 feet away from the plants, and all the plants immediately started singing.  We all turned to her in surprise.  She stepped backwards because she thought she was interrupting a presentation, and the plants stopped singing.
> 
> I invited her inside the room.  She entered and the plants started singing in response to her presence.  She seemed confused so I introduced myself and explained my project.  She laughed and explained that she is a Reiki practitioner who has developed her energy field to radiate widely outside her body.  That is how she moves in the world.  
> 
> This made me consider how plants may be able to radiate their field of communication in ways that are invisible and inaudible to most people.
> 
> On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 at 8:25 PM, jsa <jo.simalaya at gmail.com> wrote:
> Happy June, everyone!  Thanks for starting off the discussion.  My apologies for joining later in the week.  
> 
> I am an interdisciplinary artist who works with community stories, interactive installations and soundscapes.  My ongoing project, "Singing Plants Reconstruct Memory" involves three living banana leaf plants.  I grew up in the Philippines and I remember these plants as towering over me in my Lola's garden.  The ones I use in the installation are about 3" tall and housed in individual pots.
> 
> The three plants can represent the traditional Western narrative of a story: the beginning, middle, and ending.  They are also holders of cultural and body memory.
> 
> Each plant has ruptures in the leaves created by a metal bottlecap to represent "soul wounds" or missing parts of the narrative. Much of Philippine history has been written by colonizers.  I am interested in revisiting family and community stories as as step towards decolonization and reindigenization.
> 
> In my installation, I suture the leaves with conductive thread that is connected to an electronic grid with touch sensors.  
> 
> When people reach out towards the plants, the electricity in our bodies trigger the sensors and the plants sing, tell a story, or project images.
> 
> The living plants act as in intermediary between the human being and the technology.  This has generated some interesting results:
> 
> 1. The plants seem sensitive different people's energy.  Some people need to actually touch the plant to make a connection; some can just hover above the plant; some can just enter the room and the plants immediately start to sing.
> 
> 2. There have been times when no people are present and the plants trigger each other to sing. This seems to indicate an ongoing "communication" between plants that the sensors make "audible" to people.
> 
> 3. The code I've written for the electronic grid is simple: touch = ON, release = OFF.  However, the plants sometimes reverse the code.  They may spontaneously start singing without pause, and require touch to stop.  Perhaps this is a way to draw people's attention?
> 
> 4. When I water the plants with the sensors attached.  They all sing.  I sing back.  It feels like a mutual exchange.
> 
> That is just a short introduction to my project and some observations.  Thank you for posting questions for us.  I will respond soon.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jo
> 
> Jo SiMalaya Alcampo
> josimalaya.com
>  
> UPCOMING:
> Subtle Technologies Conference
> Sun May 31, 10AM-12PM, Panel Discussion at Artscape Youngplace
>  
> LIFT OFF! Festival at Cahoots Theatre
> Fri June 19, 8 PM: free public reading of Hilot Means Healer 
> Sun Jun 21, 7 pm: Storytelling event, "Shaken Roots"
>  
> Asinabka Indigenous Arts Festival
> August 19 - 23, Exhibition at Gallery 101, Ottawa
>  
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jo SiMalaya Alcampo
> josimalaya.com
>  
> UPCOMING:
> Subtle Technologies Conference
> Sun May 31, 10AM-12PM, Panel Discussion at Artscape Youngplace
>  
> LIFT OFF! Festival at Cahoots Theatre
> Fri June 19, 8 PM: free public reading of Hilot Means Healer 
> Sun Jun 21, 7 pm: Storytelling event, "Shaken Roots"
>  
> Asinabka Indigenous Arts Festival
> August 19 - 23, Exhibition at Gallery 101, Ottawa
>  
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jo SiMalaya Alcampo
> josimalaya.com
>  
> UPCOMING:
> Subtle Technologies Conference
> Sun May 31, 10AM-12PM, Panel Discussion at Artscape Youngplace
>  
> LIFT OFF! Festival at Cahoots Theatre
> Fri June 19, 8 PM: free public reading of Hilot Means Healer 
> Sun Jun 21, 7 pm: Storytelling event, "Shaken Roots"
>  
> Asinabka Indigenous Arts Festival
> August 19 - 23, Exhibition at Gallery 101, Ottawa
>  

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