Bionic and the Wires are a Manchester based collective that create electronic music with plants. Their compositions combine botanical rhythms with atmospheric textures and soundscapes created by synthesisers. The music explores the interplay between plants and music and encourages new ways of thinking about the natural world. All plants create electrical bio-signals from natural processes like photosynthesis. Bionic and the Wires attach sensors to the plant leaves to capture these pulses which are transformed by music making equipment into electricity to power robotic plant ‘arms’. The machine builds on inventions such as the Plantwave device that have been around for a few years, but they’ve taken it to a new level so the plant can play a live instrument. They’ve enabled the plant to control a steel handpan drum and even a violin as part of their performance. Bionic and the Wires consists of Andy Kidd on the keyboard and synthesizer and Jon Ross on the plants!