The success of the Data Garden Quartet project was immediate. The physical copies of the 2-hour album that I had edited down from three days of recording sold out in less than a day. We were bombarded with research questions, press requests, thoughtful letters and more opportunities to exhibit this work. Sam and I were flown around the US to present more sonification works at museums and international festivals. Like-minded artists gravitated towards working with Data Garden to release their own bio-generated works.

While all of this was amazing, it was also clear that it was not sustainable. Our travels to produce installations and workshops on plant music had inspired a new generation of artists and developers who, themselves, had their own research questions as well as their own audiences. It became clear that, rather than trying to perform every experiment ourselves, we needed to provide people access to our tools and foster a community around those tools through which support and inspiration could be shared.

MIDI Sprout

In the spring of 2014, Data Garden launched a Kickstarter for the MIDI Sprout, a biodata sonification device that allows users to monitor the conductive variation of their houseplants as music through a synthesizer, computer or mobile device. The project was quickly funded, with over 450 backers and another 450 people on a waiting list to order one. The success of this campaign inspired even more press and opportunities to present including television appearances.

Quartet and MIDI Sprout succeeded in presenting technology pioneered by outsider biofeedback artists of the 1970s (and my friend in his basement) as relevant, emotive and expressive tools in the contemporary realm. Our blog, the digital artifact that I created to keep track of my own inspiration was even archived by Cornell University and chosen as one of 150 websites on the entire Internet deemed indispensable to the history of digital media art. These projects, which I was able to manage in my spare time outside of a 9-5 day job, were just the beginning. 

Transitioning from working 40 hours a week to earn a living plus 20-30 hours a week on creative projects to working 50-60 hours a week on creative projects certainly proved to open up new opportunities. My skills related to presenting biosensing art combined with a deep understanding of marketing and communications together with access to some of the most talented researchers, artists and scientists in the world made me a valuable collaborator on mobile biosensing apps and virtual reality experiences.