“Bionic and the Wires” by Jon Ross and Andy Kidd transforms electrical signals from plants and fungi into an ever-changing soundscape. Sensors measure minute bioactivity and translate it into sound in real time. This gives rise to fragile acoustic systems in which organisms can be experienced as sound-producing agents within a shared, constantly shifting environment.

As a multidisciplinary artist, technologist, and environmental thinker, Jon Ross challenges anthropocentric notions of creativity by opening up spaces of expression and resonance for non-human life forms. In Bionic and the Wires, he collaborates with musician Andy Kidd, who translates direct biosignals into audible structures using solenoid coils and digital sound systems.

The installation transforms the hidden electrical activity of plants and fungi into an immersive, continuously changing sound field. Conceived for the esc medien kunst labor, visitors encounter living organisms not as passive objects, but as acoustically active participants within a shared sound environment. By listening closely, overlapping patterns emerging from internal biological processes become perceptible.

The work is based on the use of sensors that detect minute changes in electrical conductivity on the surface of plants and fungi.

In the installation at the esc medien kunst labor, the electrical impulses from the fungi control small solenoid magnets, which in turn generate sounds reminiscent of nature when they come into contact with organic materials. Visitors are invited to gently touch the fungi, thereby altering the state of the living organisms and, consequently, the sound.

By acoustically amplifying these barely perceptible signals, the work reveals microbiological and plant processes as dynamic systems and directs our attention to a capacity for response that transcends the human. Plants and fungi appear as relational agents in constant exchange with their environment.

Bionic and the Wires proposes viewing nature not as an opposite, but as a sonically active structure of signals, relations, and ongoing transformation, in which the boundaries between organism, technology, and environment increasingly dissolve.

Support: Arne Glöckner (AUT), Ach & Krach collective (Arne Glöckner (AUT), mechanical electronics and sound engineering, and Sebastian Schröck (AUT), physicist). Ach & Krach are active in the fields of performance, music, and installation and have already collaborated with a wide variety of artists.

Thanks to Michaela Friedl, GUTBEHÜTET, Pilzmanufaktur im Vulkanland