Maria Kuptsova

Pine Drone is a cyborganic sound installation for the Crypt0rave "Think like a forest" Festival in St-Petersburg, inJuly 2021. It explores the possibility of using hybrid multi-agent systems, consisting of both artificial and biological agents, to create algorithmic auditory compositions.

One of the distinctive features of living tissue is the ability to generate bioelectrical potentials, which are involved in the regulation of cellular processes as well as being responsible for the transfer of information from various organs and tissues of living organisms. This mechanism allows an animal or plant to respond to external influences by generating bioelectrical impulses. The study of such bioelectrical phenomena allows a better understanding of processes occurring in biological systems on micro- and macrolevels.

We use this principle in our work. By measuring the gradient of the bioelectric potential based on a non-invasive method where electrodes are placed on the surface of the plant (biological agent), we transmit the data for processing by a microcomputer (artificial agent). From acquired data, the behaviour of artificial agent is determined, manifested by generation of cyborg sound code that depends on the behaviour of biological agent. It is well known that biological agents, while transmitting information within an ecosystem, can influence each other's behaviour. In turn, by analysing bioelectrical potentials, these kinds of changes can be monitored and broadcast in sound form. The use of the hybrid systems described above, along with the approaches being developed within algorithmic music, makes it possible to organise the resulting sound into a multi-channel musical composition.

Authors: Sergey Kostyrko, Maria Kuptsova, Konstantin Dyachkov

Support: Artem Chekalin