The Sound of Plant Breeding

PantiSonics Sounds on the radio, on the Internet and in a museum installation allow unusual access to breeding.

The profession of plant breeders is very old. Their tools range from classic hybridization and selection to the latest molecular biotechnology  techniques, such as genome editing. Although we consume the products of plant breeding every day, most people do not know how plant breeding actually works. An attempt to explain plant breeding often fails because of its complexity. Sonification is an attempt to experience such a complex system via sound.

Podium discussion at the opening of the supermarket ErbUndGut in the Museum of Natural History Berlin on 7th March 2019. Source: H. Perner
Podium discussion at the opening of the supermarket ErbUndGut in the Museum of Natural History Berlin on 7th March 2019. Source: H. Perner


The PlantiSonics were developed out of the idea of ​​making plant breeding and their methods audible in the radio Deutschlandfunk Kultur. In the series "Sonarizations", Marcus Gammel from Deutschlandfunk and Thomas Hermann, sonification researcher at the CITEC of Bielefeld University, were able to resound climate change. Nevertheless, Thomas Hermann says: "This is one of the most complex sonification projects in which I am involved." To make it possible, artists Alberto de Campo and Kathrin Hunze collaborated with scientists and ethicists Julia Diekämper, Katrin Vohland, Henrike Perner and Matthias Arlt from the research projects GenomElection, ELSA-GEA and the PLANT2030 office.

The result are sound examples and texts that were presented not only on Deutschlandfunk but also in the installation "Supermarket ErbUndGut" in the Museum of Natural History Berlin until 12th of May 2019.

You can hear some sound examples from Plantainment PlantiSonics at pflanzenforschung.de. Especially recommended is the lifestream of the Arabidopsis genome.

In the feature "Sound Art Meets Science: From the Sound of the Potato to the Mature Customer" you can listen to and read the program from 04.04.2019 in German.

The following video gives you some impressions of the Supermarket and how the sonification expert Thomas Hermann experienced the project (in german language).

Go to the Plantainment

Zurück zur Liste