Current exhibition
Past Event
Helen Anahita Wilson: linea naturalis
(we are all bioelectrical beings)
a multi-sensory event
25 February 2024
1:00 - 3:00 PM
Bioelectricity is generated by a variety of biological processes in all living cells.
We are all bioelectrical beings.
Every single sound in linea naturalis is derived from natural bioelectricity and micro-electrical fluctuations in plants with medicinal and healing properties: petals, leaves, trunks, and branches. With 28 parts of the bioelectricity recordings converted into musical data tracks, sound artist Helen Wilson assigned an instrument to each of these parts. She then applied compositional processes of editing and development to create the unique piece of plant-derived music. Linea naturalis is 45 minutes long.
On 25 Feburary 2024, Helen Wilson's linea naturalis will animate the space of Small Gallery, where visual artist Lisa Chang Lee's solo exhibition 'Wind Dwellers' is currently on display. This site-specific exhibition includes a set of newly commissioned hand-painted bronze sculptures of birch tree leaves. Most intriguingly, Helen Wilson's music resonates with Lisa Chang Lee's 2023 remix of the audiovisual installation Serenade of the Woods, which is also derived from a set of plants. In Lisa Chang Lee's working process, the movement of different plants in breeze was captured in her video clips, transformed into music notes by the computer, and eventually played out by musicians - it was a collaboration between nature, machine, and human.
Dessert artist Xinyi Li will bring a gustatory dimension to the acoustic and visual stimuli of the event. Xinyi selected three plants featured in Helen Wilson's music - ginger, peppermint, and poppy seeds - to make madeleines and cookies specifically for this event. Each dessert she creates is a chapter of its own, blending heritage with a pinch of the unexpected.
Poster for Small Gallery event 'Helen Wilson: linea naturalis (we are all bioelectrical beings).'