Electric Garden (2024 ~ ongoing)
The garden is created in collaboration with the gardening team of Hof van Cartesius and the team of Creative Coding Utrecht.
Supported by Creative Coding Utrecht, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie
More information at www.tree-001-archive.xyz.
Workshops related to Electric Garden ︎︎︎ ︎ Gardening as Electricity Making
In collaboration with Critical Infrastructure Lab of University of Amsterdam on building another electric garden and further experiments.
Essay written on Electric Garden ︎︎︎ whenspidersspindusk.com/researchs/making-circular-assemblages
Artwork made through research on Electric Garden ︎︎︎ Attunement
The garden is created in collaboration with the gardening team of Hof van Cartesius and the team of Creative Coding Utrecht.
Supported by Creative Coding Utrecht, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie
More information at www.tree-001-archive.xyz.
Workshops related to Electric Garden ︎︎︎ ︎ Gardening as Electricity Making
In collaboration with Critical Infrastructure Lab of University of Amsterdam on building another electric garden and further experiments.
Essay written on Electric Garden ︎︎︎ whenspidersspindusk.com/researchs/making-circular-assemblages
Artwork made through research on Electric Garden ︎︎︎ Attunement
About:
Electric Garden is an ongoing artistic research project that explores electricity as a living, relational process. Using microbial fuel cells, which generate power through the metabolic processes of soil bacteria, the garden becomes an ecosystem where microbes, plants, insects, and minerals coexist while emitting small currents of electricity. The project involves a physical outdoor garden at Creative Coding Utrecht, mobile gardens as art installations, and series of workshops on mud cell making and building electronics powered by the garden.
Informed by the sensibilities of gardening and fermentation, the project reimagines electricity as something to be cultivated and cared for, challenging the high-speed, extractive logic of industrial energy systems. Devices powered by the garden are designed to adapt to the slow, variable currents of the microbes, encouraging reflection on degrowth, reciprocity, and ecological coexistence.
As part of the research, hands-on workshops invite people to build their own microbial fuel cells, creating spaces for collective (un)learning about energy and for conversations on regenerative technologies. Through these gatherings, the project expands into networks of gardens that reflect diverse approaches and contexts.
The partnering organisations Creative Coding Utrecht, Fiber, iMAL, and the Critical Infrastructure Lab at the University of Amsterdam have been taking part by fostering community engagement around the Electric Garden and conducting parallel research. The project is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.
Electric Garden is an ongoing artistic research project that explores electricity as a living, relational process. Using microbial fuel cells, which generate power through the metabolic processes of soil bacteria, the garden becomes an ecosystem where microbes, plants, insects, and minerals coexist while emitting small currents of electricity. The project involves a physical outdoor garden at Creative Coding Utrecht, mobile gardens as art installations, and series of workshops on mud cell making and building electronics powered by the garden.
Informed by the sensibilities of gardening and fermentation, the project reimagines electricity as something to be cultivated and cared for, challenging the high-speed, extractive logic of industrial energy systems. Devices powered by the garden are designed to adapt to the slow, variable currents of the microbes, encouraging reflection on degrowth, reciprocity, and ecological coexistence.
As part of the research, hands-on workshops invite people to build their own microbial fuel cells, creating spaces for collective (un)learning about energy and for conversations on regenerative technologies. Through these gatherings, the project expands into networks of gardens that reflect diverse approaches and contexts.
The partnering organisations Creative Coding Utrecht, Fiber, iMAL, and the Critical Infrastructure Lab at the University of Amsterdam have been taking part by fostering community engagement around the Electric Garden and conducting parallel research. The project is supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.
︎June 2025 - Photos of the Electric Garden in Creative Coding Utrecht. The garden is now one year old, and is flourishing with an abundance of plants, insects, algae, and birds coming to bathe. And it is still making electricity.
Process of building the garden:
︎June 2024 the garden is finally built, and energy harvesting infrastructure is set up and is starting to grow.
︎ Showing at Composting Computers expo (www.composting.computer) - The intermittent radio signal powered by garden electricity influences the digital artwork. (prototype)
︎The process of garden building in May-June 2024 at Hof van Cartesius in Utrecht, with the support of Creative Coding Utrecht, and the gardening team of the Hof.
︎Sketches of the garden
︎Left: Diagram of a microbial fuel cell
︎Right: A microbial fuel cell in a glass fermentation jar, presented inside the installation by Sunjoo Lee, Cemre Eraslan, and Roland Farkas during the exhibition Index of Error, at Paradise, Den Haag.