海角视频

The Singing Trees Sound System

Boston, USA

A vibrant new public space is taking shape in Boston鈥檚 Seaport 鈥� Harbor Way. Upon its completion in 2024, this one third of a mile pedestrian promenade will connect the Seaport development to Boston Harbor.

Harbor Way鈥檚 design is inspired by a hybrid of New England鈥檚 coastal geology, forest landscapes, and traditional wooden boardwalks.

Harbor Way鈥檚 first phase, a new green area named The Rocks at Harbor Way, offers a memorable open space for the whole city to enjoy. The Rocks at Harbor Way was named after the 250,000+ pounds of locally sourced boulders, also known as 鈥済lacial erratics鈥� that can now be found in the heart of the development. But visitors to the space will also notice an unusual music in the air 鈥� the sound of the singing of the trees themselves. 

The Singing Trees is a piece of immersive public art that connects Bostonians with the nature around them.

The installation uses a technology called PlantWave to help visitors to hear the biorhythms of the Sugar Maple and White Oak trees translated into music.

PlantWave technology matches the raw data to a MIDI, a digital music interface, and places the notes within the simple pentatonic scale.

Our experts built a bespoke control system to allow live data from the trees to be interpreted as music.

Challenge

The Singing Trees is a piece of immersive public art that connects Bostonians with the nature around them.

The audio installation is the dreamchild of WS Development鈥檚 Seaport team and artist Joe Patitucci of Data Garden, who envisioned a work that would use a technology called PlantWave to help visitors to actually hear the biorhythms of the Sugar Maple and White Oak trees translated into music.

Using carefully placed electrodes, PlantWave measures the electrical variations of leaves and translates that data into sound. The Singing Trees come to life at The Rocks at Harbor Way through four distinct listening pockets situated around the park.

海角视频鈥檚 audio-visual experts were engaged to help to bring this technical challenge to life. The key challenge was how this would be integrated in such a way that it could be unobtrusive in the space but easy for visitors to engage with.

Solution

In 2019, Data Garden launched a Kickstarter campaign to develop PlantWave. Patitucci, who is also a musician, had been working on the idea of plant music since 2012.

PlantWave technology matches the raw data to a MIDI, a digital music interface, and places the notes within the simple pentatonic scale, but the notes themselves essentially come from the plants, or in this case, the trees in the new public space.

The design team connected PlantWave technology to leaves on three oaks and a maple tree, creating a band composed of a flute, a pan flute, a vocal chorus, and chimes.

A series of small kiosks were constructed that allow visitors to hear the live music from the individual trees. This will provide real time performances in the summer, with older recordings played during the winter months when the trees have shed their leaves.

We built a bespoke control system to give the flexibility to allow live data to be interpreted as music from each tree, fed to speakers at the separate kiosks, or alternatively the streams can be brought together as a 鈥減erformance鈥� of all the trees. Our experts devised a way that each kiosk could separate into a stereo pair of speakers to create the best possible soundscape.

The infrastructure for the system had to be designed and installed swiftly to co-ordinate with and integrate into the construction of the main pathways through the park. The audio system brings together a total of eight speakers across the park. It has been designed to enable it to also be used for other requirements, such as outdoor business meetings, presentations or public events and fitness classes. Two wireless microphones have been incorporated into the system for this alternative purpose. A Bluetooth receiver/player has also been integrated, so conventional music can be streamed through the system.

Value

The Singing Trees launched at the Seaport in October 2021. Now every Sunday from 12-2pm, a 鈥渃oncert鈥� is played in the park, with the Singing Trees performing together.

It is believed that this installation could be the start of a new movement in biophilic design 鈥� taking soundscapes that use plant music algorithms to create naturally relaxing environment for spaces like lobbies in buildings that have a focus on user wellbeing.