Type
Art
Role
Individual
Date
2025
#
Art
#
Speculative
#
Installation
#
Computing
Collective Silence I
An interactive kinetic sculpture exploring plant communication and collective defence.
Collective Silence I
Plants communicate without words. What if humans became the observed?
Collective Silence is an interactive kinetic sculpture inspired by plant induced defence mechanisms. The installation translates invisible ecological communication into physical behaviour, allowing visitors to experience how plant communities collectively respond to external disturbances.
Using ultrasonic sensing and servo-driven movement, the sculpture shifts between two behavioural states. When no visitor is nearby, the plants move freely. As someone approaches, every flower immediately falls silent, simulating the defensive stillness observed in plant communities.
Rather than representing plants as passive organisms, the work proposes them as active participants within ecological information networks, capable of perception, communication, and collective action.
Position
Modern agriculture has long treated plants as passive organisms, responding only after visible symptoms appear. Yet contemporary plant science suggests otherwise. Plants continuously exchange information through biochemical signals, responding collectively to environmental change long before damage becomes visible.
Among these signals, biogenic volatile organic compounds (bVOCs) play a crucial role. When a plant is attacked or stressed, it releases airborne chemical compounds that can be detected by neighbouring plants, triggering defensive responses across the community. Communication therefore exists not as language, but as an invisible ecological network operating beyond human perception.
Collective Silence is inspired by this phenomenon. Rather than visualising plant communication directly, the work asks what it would feel like to encounter an ecosystem that suddenly changes its behaviour in response to human presence. Through movement, the installation translates an invisible biological process into a shared spatial experience, inviting visitors to reconsider the relationship between humans and the living systems that surround them.
Process
The prototype combines natural branches, servo motors, ultrasonic sensing and Arduino to translate plant communication into physical behaviour.
Exhibition
MFA Computational Arts Degree Show 2025
Goldsmiths, University of London
London, UK
14–16 August 2025
