ECOLOGY

It is important to consider challenges impacting the Tasmanian environment, particularly endemic plant life, and how this can be brought to light through an interactive public art installation based on a glass house with plants that generate music and create a soundscape. Glass House Arcadia represents a site of conservation, of raising and nurturing plants. It invites the audience to consider the significance of a finely 'tuned' eco system and its balance between human interaction and nature. The images in the glass broadly references those plant forms in abstract compositions. The soundscape gives voice to the plants; a kind of ecological anthropomorphism. The music is created by the plants and the environment. Changes within the plants affect the pitch, the rhythm. Various environmental conditions impact on the sound which changes whether the plants are healthy or whether they are sick. The audience has the opportunity to experience and interact with the real time growth transformed into sound, as if the plants are speaking and expressing their level of well being. 

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GLASS HOUSE

The Glass house concept, project management and the laminated glass artwork is by Caroline Rannersberger: The glass house is approximately a 4x3m structure with a 3.5m high roof pitch, illuminated with LED lights. Constructed in a steel frame, it holds 13 individual glass panels (1x2m), each with a photo interlayer based on abstract images of plant life. Caroline is assisted by Tasmanian glass technician Merinda Young, Tudor Rose Glass Works. The architectural work and detailing for the glass house structure is by Tasmanian architect Christopher Clinton.

SOUND

The interactive sound installation using plant bio data is by Sam Nester. There will be live on site performances with local musicians. A key element is 'Arcadia', Sam's interactive sound installation concept that uses the natural biorhythms of plants to create music. It works by converting the fluctuations in galvanic conductance of plants to MIDI data to control MIDI instruments in realtime. In addition, contact microphones are connected to various parts of the installed environment and convert incoming audio signals to MIDI messages, allowing participants coming through the installation to interact with the plants, turning the environment into one big musical instrument. Each device is programmable to 16 separate MIDI channels, meaning that 16 different plants can be making music at any one time per program. Each plant makes music with the least amount of human interaction.

PLANT BIOLOGY

Botanical expertise is provided by multi disciplinary scientist/ecologist Daniel Sprod. Plants and further advice are obtained from Plants of Tasmania Nursery. 'Glass House Arcadia' celebrates important ecologies of  endemic Tasmanian species, focussing in the main on the iconic huon pine. In this Hobart based installation, two twenty year old huon pines generate sound as they continue to grow and respond to their temporary environment in the Waterside Pavilion. Lagarostrobos franklinii (Huon Pine) is a rainforest tree that grows in western and southern Tasmania. It is very fire sensitive and only grows in fire-free areas. It is slow growing and may live for over 2000 years. It mostly grows at low-moderate altitudes, but occasionally extends into the alpine zone. It is most commonly seen along rivers (Plants of Tasmania Nursery).