Trees talk to each other and to the outside world. In national premiere Platani and Plants Play

On the occasion of the final evening of Roma Creative Contest 2019, on September 22, 2019 at 9 p.m., at theformer Guido Reni Barracks, Davide Santocchi ’s Platani and the Plants Play performance by Yourban2030, the Italian nonprofit that created about a year ago Hunting Pollution, the largest smog-eating mural in Europe, will be presented as a national premiere.

The protagonists of this special event in the sign of the environment will therefore be the trees, or rather, the plane trees of Rome: according to some recent scientific research, trees talk to each other. And this is precisely the premise from which both Platani and Plants Play start.

Platani by Davide Santocchi is a short film in which two plane trees, one younger and one more adult, talk to each other, touching with an ironic and sarcastic style on some of the most heartfelt environmental issues. The plane trees are often chosen as street furniture because they are very resistant to smog and because they capture a lot of carbon dioxide. The featured trees have the voices of Marco Mete and Dario Penne. The short film is directed by Riccardo Rabacchi and produced in collaboration with Redigital, Luxor and Laserfilm and was born from the Screenplay Contest winning screenplay at the 2018 Roma Creative Contest written by Davide Santocchi.

After the screening of the short film, Yourban2030 will present the Plants Play performance that aims to show the audience the linguistic codes of trees, which are able to communicate with each other and with the outside world. The first wearable device to convert electrical impedance changes in plants into music has been devised: the device picks up electrical signals by means of two sensors placed on the leaves of plants and transforms them into musical notes through a statistical generation algorithm created; the notes are then sent via Bluetooth to a smartphone or computer via a Midi cable. On this occasion, two plants connected with these special electrodes will then be placed on the stage so that the audience can listen to the words of the trees, turning their language into music. Young creators of this unique device are Edoardo Taori and Federica Zizzari.

"It is precisely by observing trees that I learned a lesson that is not written in geometry books. It is precisely the plane trees of Rome with their overbearing roots that make their way splitting the asphalt that showed me that there is another path, less linear, unexpected, but no less effective to reach our goal.
So I founded Yourban2030, a nonprofit organization that chooses the language of art in all its forms to send a message about environmental issues and to imagine new prospects for a sustainable future. Could we have ever planted 30 trees at an intersection in the Ostiense neighborhood? Frankly, no, but we could have created Hunting Pollution, the largest green mural in Europe, using a reactive paint that can absorb the pollution produced by 80 vehicles in one day. Could we have told you that plants are able to communicate? Maybe yes, but it would not have been as convincing as hearing them speak," said Yourban2030 President Veronica De Angelis.

Trees talk to each other and to the outside world. In national premiere Platani and Plants Play

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