When Seeds Speak
When Seeds Speak is a collaborative project with artist Miranda Whall that explores creative potentials within a dataset derived from the metabolic fingerprint analysis of six black oat seeds. The project seeks to uncover the processes and history around farming the black oat, as well as visualise and sonify the data from the analysis.
I developed an application, using the Max programming environment, to create a generative processes that run using the dataset gathered from the metabolic fingerprint analysis of the black oat seed. This uses the data to create music structures through synthesis techniques as well as timing control. Field recordings of processes within the lifecycle of the grain– sowing, harvesting, consumption – as well as sound generated by the analysis process itself are also used in the composition.
The final result, then, is composition governed by the dataset, that uses as its instrumentation sound recordings from the life of the seed as well as synthesised sound generated by the data themselves.
The work exists as an album, available on bandcamp below, and as an extended performance work.
The first performance was at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff in September 2024. The work was performed by Miranda and myelf as well as Angharad Davies, Yumino Seki and Neil Luck. A recording and some images of the performance are below.
Some early test compositions can be heard below and there are some images of the data, and the process of gathering it.