Kristen Baumlier

What does it sound like when lettuce is withering up and “dying?” Leonardo Amico attached electric circuits to pieces of Romaine lettuce, and used oscillators to transform the measurements of water content and decomposing cells into sounds and tones.

In the online video titled Processing Decay, which documents the making of the piece, you hear sounds that sound like pulses and alarms.  When the lettuce is fresh, the sounds are longer and fuller, and when the video cuts to 5 days later, the sounds of the wilting lettuce are shorter notes that occur more frequently.  The experience of seeing the lettuce wilt and hearing the sounds change is unique and a little sad.

On the project/video site Amico writes:

“Technology relies on the stiffness of the inorganic. Digital processing consists of a sequence of logical operations inside lattices of chemically modified silicon crystal. Rarely computational and organic processes meet each other (apart from the peculiar relationship humans can build with electronic technology and gadgetry) but nonetheless they share a common characteristic: they both express themselves as phenomena over time.

This work intends to explore the possibility of an encounter between the two realms, by translating their processes into the universal language for phenomena; sound. Over the course of hours, days and weeks time spoils the texture of the leaves and degrades cells, slowly affecting the behavior of the system and its sonic output. The accuracy and precision of digital chips are forced to take into account the inevitably slow failure of inert biological matter.”

The piece is part of a collaborative project by Amico and Pere Saguer called Food Chain that was a music cd, dvd, and zine that explored the metaphysical properties of food coproduced with Badweather Press.

Images and Links:

Processing Decay – Video 

www.badweatherpress.com/foodchain.html