Dialecto de árbol no.4

This work belongs to a series of imaginary ‘tree dialects’ inspired by the following questions: What if plants also communicated through sounds as they do by means of volatile chemical signals and through their roots? And, if they did, how would it sound like? How would languages and dialects work? Would they vary depending on the species, the geography, or the environment (wild vs. urban)? Would humans relate differently to plants if we could hear them?

These ‘dialects’ serve as preliminary studies for an opera called Árbol de Bocas (“Tree of Mouths”) in which the sole character is a very peculiar tree that grows mouths instead of leaves. This work challenges the idea of “personhood” as understood in Western thought, opposing it to various indigenous philosophies (from throughout the Americas) in which this ontological category is not restricted to humans but includes other animals, plants, ideas, stories, and rivers, among other types of “persons”.