Swedish-based audiovisual artist and woodworker Love Hulten is no stranger to weird and wonderful creations. From custom-built synthesizers such as Voxarray 61, visual synthesizers that use fractals, and self-similar patterns such as Echo Observatory V2, and VOC-25, a vocal synthesizer consisting of 25 sets of plastic teeth, Hulten continues to surprise. However, for one of his latest creations, Hulten has introduced some organic material in the mix.

 Hulten calls his latest creation "Desert Songs" It uses Plantwave, a small device that translates biodata from organic material into MIDI. According to Hulten, Desert Songs is not magic, and the plants are not actually "composing" anything. Instead, the true organic "randomness" is created by biofeedback from the cacti that he used for this project. The cacti act as variable resistors and were chosen because of their very sparse and sporadic activity. Hulten made use of a few different specimens for the cacti garden and hooked them up to probes and outputs, which can be changed using patch points upfront. Next, he used a Korg NTS-1 to receive the MIDI signals and perform simple waveshaping before using the Microcosm from Hologram Electronics for some atmosphere. The whole setup was designed to have a biolab environment look, complete with a custom MIDI visualizer that was made to mimic chloroplasts under a microscope. 

Check out the video below to hear Deserts Songs, and be sure to visit Love Hulten's official website (https://www.lovehulten.com/) to see more of his unique creations.