#biosignalsph

About bioSignals [PH]

bioSignals is an artistic and cultural exchange that bridges three island nations – New Zealand, the Philippines, and the UK – through the real-time collection, processing, and transmission of signals generated from local plant life. By transforming these electro-botanical signals into multisensory installations, the project explores interspecies communication and reimagines our relationship with nature, emphasizing our global interconnectedness not just as human society, but as part of a broader living ecosystem. bioSignals foreground that we–human and non-human actors–are all part of one interconnected and interdependent world.

Through these three distinct yet interconnected approaches, bioSignals creates a global dialogue about resilience in the face of environmental challenges. The New Zealand team's 'resilience garden' merges memories, meditation, and rituals, connecting plants beyond the realms of technology. Meanwhile, the UK team explores botanical horror as a way of examining the uncanny and creating a space to contemplate the consequences of our actions on the environment. Similarly, our team in the Philippines focused on resilience through the specific lens of the tropics and the socio-political-economic conditions of the Global South. In the Philippines, where climate change impacts are often felt most severely and where resources for mitigation may be limited, resilience becomes the reality. Our decision to explore resilience was driven by the urgent need to understand and enhance the adaptive capacities of both human and ecological systems in vulnerable tropical regions.

As resilience became not a choice but a necessity in the Philippines, Kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica) emerged as the protagonist in the bioSignals PH team’s evolving narrative of survival. The bioSignals Philippines team exhibition focuses on kangkong, which, despite its ease of cultivation and medicinal properties, is frequently dismissed as merely a commonplace vegetable in the Philippines. This choice is deeply rooted in the sociocultural significance and scientific relevance of kangkong in the Philippines. At the heart of our exhibition lies kangkong, both a metaphor and a medium, a testament to resilience and adaptability in Filipino culture, thriving in the margins.

Through an interdisciplinary approach, our exhibition tells the story of kangkong through collected plant signals, environmental adaptation, and cultural connotations, while highlighting its—and by extension, our—resilience. This exhibition harnesses the silent language of plants, transforming biological processes into a dialogue that transcends geographical boundaries.

The use of mixed media in the artwork reflects different perspectives on resilience. Kangkong's adaptability to grow anywhere symbolizes resilience as flexibility, demonstrated by Gino Javier's cultivation in recycled containers; and Jerome Suplemento, Diego Maranan, and Pat Calora's use of woven yarn where the roots findtheir way around the fibers. Resilience as survival is explored through Shari San Pablo’s work, where the kangkong fields metaphorically represent both resilience and its limits. The ongoing process of growing kangkong, monitored through signals, exemplifies resilience as a process–a dynamic and ever-evolving concept.

The exhibition space now becomes a living laboratory where art, science, and culture converge. bioSignals would like to remind us that resilience is not a static state but a dynamic process of constant renewal—a flow that, like kangkong, finds ways to persist and thrive. As we face global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, this exhibition invites us to observe, connect, and learn from the quiet wisdom of kangkong which has mastered the art of survival.

Dr Diego Maranan, Jerome Suplemento, Dr Shari Eunice San Pablo, Blancaflor Arada, Pieter Steyaert, Gino Javier / TERRA BOMBA, Pat Calora

Description of bioSignals[PH] Works

Resilience Requires Renewal

Diego Maranan

In this work, I attempt to embody the concept of resilience through the growth of plants on a suspended fabric, an environment that is both unnatural and precarious for them. Resilience, especially in nature, is often perceived as an innate quality—something inherent in plants, animals, and ecosystems. We admire plants for their ability to grow in seemingly inhospitable environments, to persist despite challenges. But resilience is not simply a matter of toughness or endurance. It is something that must be nurtured, supported, and renewed.

Like the other works by the bioSignals PH team, I use kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica), a plant known for its adaptability and tenacity, as the central figure in this experiment. Kangkong is typically grown in wet, muddy environments, and yet, in this piece, kangkong seeds are embedded in suspended crocheted fabric—something they wouldn’t naturally attach to. This unusual medium challenges the plants, asking them to adapt in new ways. 

At first glance, the plants appear resilient simply because they are growing in an unconventional space. However, their resilience is only possible because of the support systems I've put in place. One key element in this work is the running water that continuously cycles over the suspended fabric. The water is not just a passive medium but an active participant in the resilience of the plants. By cycling over the fabric, the water prevents stagnation, keeps the plants nourished, and sustains a moisture gradient that runs from the top of the fabric (dry) to the bottom (very wet). This environmental gradient offers the plants a variety of moisture levels to choose from. In turn, this creates a dynamic and adaptive growing environment, where each plant can determine the best location to extend its roots. The water flow itself also symbolizes renewal—always moving, always fresh, and essential for the continued growth of the plants.

In addition to the water, I have employed grow lights to provide the plants with the necessary light for photosynthesis. Here, the resilience of the plants is dependent on an external source of energy—without the grow lights, the plants would not survive. This illustrates another aspect of resilience that often goes unrecognized: the need for nurturing from the environment. Resilient as they are, plants still require the right balance of light, water, and nutrients in order to thrive. 

Another layer of support in this piece comes from the chia seeds that surround each kangkong seed. The chia seeds, when exposed to water, form a gelatinous substance that acts as a natural adhesive, helping the kangkong seeds adhere to the fabric. This “glue” holds the seeds in place, allowing them to establish roots in an environment where they would otherwise struggle to stay put. The chia’s gelatinous coating also helps retain moisture, creating a small, localized moisture reservoir for the kangkong. In this way, the chia seeds act as an invisible support system, assisting the kangkong in its survival and growth. I believe that the chia seeds may possibly also contribute in another way: by forming a root network that the kangkong can eventually entangle itself with. As the chia sprouts and sends out roots, they may create a secondary substrate for the kangkong’s roots to attach to, providing more anchorage and stability than the fabric alone could offer. This potential interaction between the chia and kangkong further reinforces the idea that resilience is not a solitary act—it’s a process that involves mutual support, collaboration, and symbiosis.

Even though plants can grow in surprising and unlikely places, their survival and growth are not purely a testament to their own strength. They rely on a network of nurturing factors—the water, the light, the fabric, and even the chia seeds. This mirrors human resilience; humans, too, are often celebrated for our ability to withstand hardship or adapt to change, especially when living in the harsh or resource-restricted contexts of the Global South. But rarely is our resilience solely a matter of individual strength. Like the plants in this piece, we are supported by external systems: our communities, our environments, and the structures around us.

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bioSignals PH x NZ x UK

These two looping videos provide a glimpse into the process and activities of the three bioSignals teams from across the world. The first (top) is a slideshow of images shared by the Philippine, New Zealand, and UK teams. The second is a walkthrough of a virtual world built in the Sansar platform created by Daniël Vandersmissen, in which text, images, and video from the three teams are embedded throughout the environment.

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Landscape 1

Jerome Suplemento

Landscape 2

Jerome Suplemento

My decision to use an alternative growing platform for the plants is to feature their adaptability, at the same time the knitted yarn represents a malleable landscape. It also calls to attention the plight of local farmers having no ownership of the land that they till. Encased in a terrarium, the piece creates its microclimate similar to our local weather, and sensors are used to track the water cycle reflecting the sudden shifts in our climate and environment—literally and figuratively, The arrangement of the plants including the moldy seeds illustrates the natural process of growth and decay, emphasizing the delicate balance between life and death in the ecosystem. Through this work, the artist explores the dynamic relationship between nature and its surroundings, highlighting the resilience and vulnerability inherent in both.

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Diligin Ng Suka Ang Uhaw na Lumpia (1987)

Gino Javier

In this installation, I confront the pressing issues of food security through the lens of urban agriculture and waste repurposing. My work transforms an array of discarded food packaging into vessels of growth and possibility. Coffee cups, milk cartons, foil packaging for chips and pancit canton, plastic containers of mayonnaise, tin cans, and plastic containers—everyday vessels of consumption—are reimagined as cradles of cultivation. By growing kangkong (water spinach) using various propagation methods within these repurposed containers, I challenged our perceptions of waste and sustenance.

The title, "Diligin Ng Suka Ang Uhaw na Lumpia", evokes a sense of irony and futility, mirroring the contradictions inherent in our current food systems. The piece employs multiple cultivation techniques—water propagation, soil cuttings, seed germination, and hydroponics—each method representing different approaches to food production and sustainability.

The grow lights cast an artificial glow over the plants, highlighting our increasingly technological relationship with food production. This juxtaposition of natural growth within synthetic containers, illuminated by artificial light, speaks to the complex interconnections between nature, consumption, and survival in urban environments.

My piece serves as both a practical demonstration of urban farming possibilities and a critical commentary on the precarity of our food systems. By reimagining waste as a resource and exploring various growth methods, the installation suggests pathways toward more sustainable and resilient food practices, while questioning the systems that necessitate such adaptations.

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Cycle of Decay

Shari San Pablo

In "Cycle of Decay," I explore the complex relationship between nature's resilience and human violence through the symbolism of kangkong (water spinach). This installation features plaster body parts - a torso and hands - sitting on top of soil and kangkong to illustrate decomposition, illuminated by a stark red light.

The piece draws from the Filipino phrase "mabulok sa kangkungan" (to rot in water spinach fields), which typically denotes abandonment or defeat. Upon looking into the etymology of the phrase, I found that during Martial Law in the Philippines, people hid the bodies of victims from killings by authorities in water spinach fields because of its thick layers.

My work echoes the cruel irony of how humans exploit the very resilience of nature. Kangkong, known for its ability to clean toxins from water and grow in the harshest conditions, has paradoxically become associated with concealing the evidence of violence. Bodies of victims from extrajudicial killings have been found in kangkungan.

Through this installation, I want to illustrate how resilience, often celebrated particularly in Filipino culture, has its limits when it's merely a form of survival. The kangkong continues to grow and purify, yet it's perpetually burdened with processing our decay and violence. This cycle represents an exhausting loop of trauma - the plant cleanses, humans corrupt, and the cycle begins anew. The stark white plaster body parts being reclaimed by the kangkong visualize this tension between purification and contamination.

This piece embodies, both literally and metaphorically, the Filipino phrase "mabulok sa kangkungan" - to rot in the water spinach fields, forgotten. Here, we allow the kangkong to wither naturally, mirroring the slow decay the saying evokes.

My use of red lighting is intentional. Beyond its reference to Martial Law, it bathes the installation in a warning glow, serving as both a memorial to past victims and an alarm about ongoing and potential future repression. It ensures we cannot look away or forget, challenging the viewer to confront the reality of how human actions can pervert even the most restorative natural processes.

The title "Cycle of Decay" speaks to multiple layers of decomposition - the literal decay of hidden bodies, the moral decay of using nature to conceal violence, and the continuous cycle of purification and contamination. Yet it also questions the nature of resilience itself. Is the ability to withstand trauma really something to celebrate? At what point does resilience become a euphemism for being repeatedly victimized?

In creating this piece, I formed an intimate relationship with kangkong, observing its growth and resilience firsthand. This process deepened my understanding of the plant's symbolic significance in Filipino culture - how it represents our people's ability to survive and thrive in difficult conditions. Yet, like the kangkong, this resilience often comes at a cost. We adapt and survive, but the systems that necessitate this resilience remain unquestioned and unchanged.

Through "Cycle of Decay," I invite viewers to reflect on these interconnected themes of resilience, violence, and survival. The installation serves not just as an artwork, but as a form of protest and memorial. It reminds us that while nature may be resilient, continuously capable of renewal and purification, we must question the cost of this resilience and our role in perpetuating cycles of violence and decay. As kangkong continues to clean our waters and bear witness to our crimes, we must confront the limits of resilience as survival and strive for a world where such resilience is no longer necessary.

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Life Between the Gaps

Patricia Calora

In “Life Between the Gaps”, I explore the idea of resilience through an intentionally imperfect, anatomically-inspired crocheted heart, made from both acrylic and cotton yarn, with several kangkong plants (Ipomoea aquatica) growing through it. The heart’s form is deliberately flawed, with gaps and openings created during the crochet process through stitch increases, decreases, skips, yarn changes, and unwoven yarn ends. These imperfections symbolize the idea that growth and survival often arise in spaces of vulnerability, where life can flourish even under non-ideal conditions. The plants, at different stages of growth—some fully grown, some still seeds—represent resilience as an ongoing process of adaptation and renewal.

The heart is filled with earth—soil, coco coir, and moss—grounding it in nature and strengthening its connection to the plants. A closed watering system ensures their survival: when soil moisture drops to 25%, water is pumped from a basin at the base of the piece, flowing through the heart’s aorta. This inversion of the aorta’s traditional function—where it typically carries blood away from the heart—symbolizes the heart’s need for external nurturing, challenging the notion that resilience is purely internal.

By combining natural and synthetic materials, this piece aims to reflect the complex environments in which life exists, where adaptation is key. This piece explores resilience not as a self-sustained trait but as a cyclical process that requires external care and renewal. Just as the heart, though vital, needs nourishment to function, life thrives when nurtured, even in fragile or imperfect spaces.

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ESP-WROOM-32 ecosystem

Blancaflor Arada

At the beginning of the project, the initial setup utilized an Arduino UNO R2, a popular, low-cost open-source microcontroller board, connected to a Digital Humidity and Temperature sensor (DHT22), a photoresistor (light sensor), and a soil moisture sensor. However, since bioSignalsUK and NZ are using the cloud-based platform Adafruit IO, the system had to be migrated to another microcontroller, the ESP-WROOM-32. This microcontroller has similar capabilities to Arduino but includes the added advantage of Wi-Fi connectivity, making it compatible with cloud-based platforms such as Adafruit IO.

One of the challenges I faced was to familiarize herself with the functionalities of the ESP-WROOM-32 and Adafruit IO. My task was to create a dashboard to display sensor data such as humidity, temperature, light levels, and soil moisture, and to transmit this data from the ESP-WROOM-32 to the Adafruit IO platform, where it could be visualized through shared feeds.

Additionally, I needed to understand how to integrate a submersible motor pump, relays, a battery pack, and a 12V peristaltic motor pump to build an automated watering system. Furthermore, I explored the integration of a 5V LED strip into the ESP-WROOM-32 ecosystem, including learning how to set up power supply connections. Programming for these components was done using the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE), and various libraries were installed to support the functionality of Adafruit IO.

I also explored the Blues Wireless Starnote Starter Kit, a cost-effective hardware development kit designed to simplify building connected IoT solutions using non-terrestrial networks (NTN) or satellite signals. I successfully sent sample data feeds via the Blues Notecard, which uses NTN, but was unable to utilize satellite signal transmission in the Philippines due to the lack of coverage from the satellite provider Skylo.

I also attempted to integrate the Blues Wireless Starnote Starter Kit with the ESP-WROOM-32 microcontroller, connecting the ESP-WROOM-32’s GPIO 21 and 22 pins to the SDA and SCL pins of the Starnote kit. Although there were no errors in the code, the data sent from the ESP-WROOM-32 did not appear in the Notehub.io platform, likely due to the absence of Skylo coverage in the region. As a result, the Blues Wireless Starnote Starter Kit was not used in the final exhibit setup.

In the bioSignals exhibit, there were various ESP-WROOM-32 setup configurations:

Landscape 1 – The setup included an ESP-WROOM-32, DHT22 sensor, photoresistor, and soil moisture sensor.

Landscape 2 – This setup also included the Arduino UNO R2 and LED strip, which changed color in response to changes in sensor values (humidity, light, or soil moisture).

Life Between the Gaps – In addition to the ESP-WROOM-32 ecosystem, this setup, with the Arduino UNO R2, includes watering system components, such as a relay and a 12V peristaltic motor pump. When the soil moisture level dropped to 25%, the pump activated, watering a crocheted heart for 10 seconds.

Diligin Ng Suka Ang Uhaw na Lumpia – This setup was similar to bioSignals PH: Jerome, featuring an ESP-WROOM-32, DHT22 sensor, photoresistor, and soil moisture sensor.

These variations highlighted different configurations of the ESP-WROOM-32 ecosystem, demonstrating the flexibility and adaptability of the microcontroller in various IoT and artistic applications.

kangkøng

Pieter Steyaert

This system collects real-time data from sensors monitoring plants in the Philippines, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Sensors gather various metrics, including temperature, humidity, soil moisture, light levels, and biosignals such as pressure and luminance. Each data stream creates an organic blob, visually representing the unique environmental conditions at each location. As data flows continuously, the blobs morph and evolve, reflecting the dynamic conditions of the plants. The system captures subtle shifts in humidity and temperature, producing an organic visualization that responds to these inputs.

To support this, I developed two tools. The first is designed to capture, analyze, and stream this data, making it accessible for the teammates across the different locations in the world to explore, interpret and implement in their own ways. The second tool is a visual data exploration platform that transforms the raw data into dynamic visuals. This way, the data isn’t just a set of numbers but becomes an explorative experience, inviting us to see how the conditions in each region change over time and how they influence one another.

Credits

Led by a distributed team of creative collaborators from the UPOU Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, TERRA BOMBA (Philippines), AwhiWorld (New Zealand), the United Kingdom, and international artscience collective Space Ecologies Art and Design (SEADS), bioSignals gathers and shares biological signals from live plants, transmitting this data to global partners. The Philippine team’s focus on the culturally significant and resilient kangkong highlights themes of adaptability and connection in both natural and human systems.

bioSignals is a creative research project funded by the British Council’s #ConnectionsThroughCulture programme, with additional support in the Philippines from UPOU and the UP President’s Committee for Culture and the Arts, Arts-British Council, and British Council Philippines.

Organisational project members: AwhiWorld, SEADS, and UP Open University.

PH team: Diego Maranan, Jerome Suplemento, Blancaflor Arada, Shari Eunice San Pablo, Gino Javier, Peter Steyaert

NZ team: Maggie Buxton, Kim Newall, Daniel Vandersmissen, Frederico D.A de Sena Pereira, and Jarred Taylor

UK team: Mary Pedicini, Amy Holt, Ulrike Kuchner, Angelo Vermeulen, and Matthew Woodham

Special thanks to Leo Letran, Edilyn Villacora, Jimmy Fermin, Jennifer Pareja, and Earl Magtibay for logistical support and for caring for the plants.

This is the point in the discussion when we were discussing using Discord a bit more, but this is also where we begin to ask, "To what extent can we comment on what the other team is doing? To what extent is it OK just to witness?" Fred asks, "Is it OK if we comment on the electronics?" Diego, "There can be a difference between whether one team is in a more diverging thinking kind of mood or whether they are in a more convergent kind of mood." Mary: "I find it easier to comment in the non-country specific place." Common ground, says Fred.

"Greetings from the PH team! I've successfully configured the sharing of temperature and humidity data (for now) from DICT, Diliman, Quezon City using Adafruit.io. Initially, I was quite nervous since it was my first time using Adafruit. However, after diving into Adafruit tutorials, setting up with the ESP WROOM 32 microcontroller, and tackling frustrating errors due to numerous library installations in Arduino IDE and other runtime errors, I've successfully set up the Adafruit.io dashboard! 🥰"