ElectroPutere Gallery, Craiova, in partnership with the Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art (ICMA) at the George Enescu National University of Arts, Iași (UNAGE Iași), and the Iași National Museum of Romanian Literature, organised, on 27 October 2022, at the House of Museums in Iași, the sound and visual performance entitled Environmental Utopias, presented by artist Sillyconductor (Cătălin Matei) and curated by Adrian Bojenoiu, followed by a screening and a question-and-answer session.

Conducted by artist Sillyconductor (Cătălin Matei) in collaboration with curator Adrian Bojenoiu, the research focuses on the study of plant life through digital technology. Environmental Utopias offers an experimental sonic and visual exploration of the relational world of plant life.

To enter the intimate world of plant life and collect data relating to its invisible activity and interaction with the immediate environment, Sillyconductor employed a method similar to that used to monitor bioelectrical impulses. In this way, the plant becomes a mirror of the environment in which it lives. The bioelectrical fluctuations are interpreted using software developed by the artist and transformed into streams of data that can be rendered sonically and visually. The recorded impulses can be visualised and transformed into images or observed in real time, allowing for a certain degree of interaction. The performance presented to the public consists of a sonic and visual representation based on the live interpretation of the collected data, accompanied by direct interaction with several plants.

Sillyconductor is the artistic moniker of Cătălin Matei, a Romanian sound artist, composer, performer, and educator based in Bucharest. His practice explores the relationships between sound, technology, science, mathematics, and the environment, often through self-built or modified instruments, field recordings, improvisation, and experimental systems for translating data into sound. His work spans music for silent films, games, animation, fashion shows, theatre, and dance, as well as performances, installations, and interdisciplinary research projects.

His experimental practice includes projects such as Orchis, a bioart and biolinguistic research project in which electrical impulses recorded from Romanian orchid species were translated into music and minimal language using the vocabulary of Toki Pona. He has also developed a range of unconventional instruments and installations, including Ventichitara, created from modified USB fans, and 100 Catronomes, which uses 100 Maneki-Neko figures to generate complex polyrhythmic structures. In live performance projects such as Symphonic Cowboy and Pianosaurus, he draws on classical, experimental, and folk traditions, combining them with samplers, field recordings, and processes of sonic deconstruction.

Working under both the Sillyconductor and Rochite aliases, Matei has increasingly focused on biolinguistic installations and the sonification of otherwise inaudible phenomena, ranging from biological processes to archaeological environments. Through his performances, installations, and workshops, he brings together biology, technology, and sound, exploring ways in which abstract data can be translated into perceptible forms and systems of communication.

https://sillyconductor.com