Echo Garden
A gridless instrument for live sets, where the music moves when bodies and plants move
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 my live Ableton set and triggers instruments. Lift the arm and the plant drops out.
A density threshold sets how many notes get through. My other instruments share the same threshold.
Everything can loop through a Frippertronics-style tape delay. The loop takes a live performer or the plant’s notes. It can also take a performer’s body. A Kinect reads it, and it’s played like a theremin.
Still being tried: the Kinect follows the performer, and the arm moves to where she comes near the plant. Wekinator may sit in between. Light may be projected onto her body.
I’m building it at the ADE Lab Hackathon in Amsterdam, 21 to 23 October 2026, for Colin Benders’ Escape the Grid challenge.
Still open: finding the leaves on show day, lining up the Kinect, projector and arm in a new room, and how a set runs.