Plectrum: bioacoustic ants and electroacoustic visions. 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.

Plectrum "Attunement" (feat. Auriel, June 2022)

Excerpt from live composition in Sonic Pi using recordings from ants running across lasers

Transversal Antsteps [excerpt from 'The Crossing' soundart installation]

Nånofacture [Marching Rebirth]

Tribes Of Neurot- Adaptation And Survival Disc 2

Pneumatik

Certainty

The Major's Last Lament

Vibratium Green

LeafcuttingX

Leafcutting04

Leafcutting03

Leafcutting02

Leafcutting01

Thermotaxis: reactive soundscape using Sonic-Pi, Open CV + Thermal data

Plectrum: bioacoustic ants and electroacoustic visions

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

Plectrum "Intro" (feat. Auriel, Feb 2020)

zombie ant • bioacoustic stridulations • mutualism between species • symbiosis between artifacts and organisms • parasitism is no problem

Kuai Shen

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