Plectrum: bioacoustic ants and electroacoustic visions

performed with Auriel, Markus Muschenich & João Martins

 

Audiovisual performance between ants and humans playing guitars, electronic instruments, and algorithms

 

Plectrum is an audiovisual performance that draws inspiration from the stridulatory organ of leaf-cutter ants Atta cephalotes. Stridulation is a bioacoustic phenomenon produced by a unique microscopic organ, the stridulatory organ. This organ is located between the rear and torso of the ant exoskeleton. Its primary function is the production of vibratory messages that modulate alarm and recruitment signals. Ants do not hear airborne sounds, rather they sense resonant environments, perceiving vibrations transmitted across surfaces using their legs and sensory hairs. Ants that stridulate use the substrate-borne sound waves to accentuate chemical communication. Every ant individual produces distinctive frequencies at different intervals and develops a distinctive stridulatory organ, a vibratory voice, with subtle yet unique sonic patterns.

Performed in:

Cologne 2014 (Kölner Musiknacht)
with Markus Muschenich & João Martins

Cologne 2014 (Visual Sounds at Sankt Gertrud Kirche 2015)
with Markus Muschenich & João Martins

Dresden 2015 (CYNETART at Festspielhaus Hellerau) with Auriel

Lugano 2016 (Hackteria Hydra Project at Sonnenstube) with Auriel

Munich 2018 (Muffatwerk 25th Anniversary) with Auriel

Brno 2022 (House of Arts, Brno Art Open Biennial) with Auriel