Picture a potted plant on a wooden table. A small dark box sits beside it, with one cable clipped to a leaf and one pushed into the soil. A desktop robot arm reaches over and rests its tool on a leaf. The box lights up, notes rise from the plant, and slow rings spread from the pot. The arm lifts, the notes stop, and the rings fade.
The 3D view needs WebGL, which this browser does not offer.
Drag to look around. The arm moves to a new leaf every 20 seconds. Hear a recorded session of the real plant.
A robot arm touches a living plant and closes its circuit. A Pocket Scion turns the plant's signal into MIDI. That MIDI runs into a live Ableton set and triggers instruments. Lift the arm and the plant drops out. Whatever it played can keep going round in a tape-style loop.
How it works
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The plant
A small box called a Pocket Scion reads the plant's electrical signal. It turns that signal into MIDI notes. A density threshold sets how many notes get through. Other instruments in the set share the same threshold, such as the sting.
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The arm
When the arm touches a leaf, the circuit closes and the plant's notes come into the set. When the arm lifts, they stop. On show day, the arm first has to find where the leaves are.
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The body, still experimental
A Kinect reads how a performer moves. The idea is that when she comes near the plant, the arm moves to meet her there. Wekinator may sit in between to learn her poses. Light may also be projected onto her body.
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The loop
Frippertronics is looping over yourself through a long tape delay. Robert Fripp and Brian Eno did it with two tape machines. Here the loop takes 3 inputs: a live performer, the plant's notes and a performer's body. The Kinect reads the body, and it's played like a theremin.
How a touch becomes sound
See it play out in the replaySolid: working nowDashed: still being tried
Three things are still open, and they're the work for the hackathon. The arm has to find the leaves on show day. The Kinect, the projector and the arm have to line up in a new room. And how a set runs, from first touch to last loop, isn't decided yet.
Escape the Grid
A plant, a robot arm, a performer and a Frippertronics-style tape delay, played as one performance. Clocks exist, but the looping is timey-wimey. Echo Garden is being built at the ADE Lab Hackathon in Amsterdam, 21 to 23 October 2026, for Colin Benders' challenge, Escape the Grid.
Looking for genuine musicians, signal movers, digital makers and visual orchestrators of light. Technology and music aficionados are welcome too.