Estepona Orchidarium to Feature Live Orchid-Generated Music

Estepona’s Botanical-Orchidarium will premiere 'Listen to the Invisible', an innovative installation where live orchids compose music and images in real time

Estepona’s Botanical-Orchidarium is set to host a groundbreaking new installation, allowing visitors to hear and see the 'invisible' life of orchids. This unique project offers a permanent new attraction for residents and property owners.

Estepona Town Hall has announced that on Sunday, 25 October 2026, at 10:00, the Botanical-Orchidarium will premiere 'Listen to the Invisible'. This innovative audiovisual and interactive installation will feature live orchids composing music and images in real time.

This original activity is part of the 11th Estepona Orchid and Collector Plant Fair, which will take place during that weekend. The artistic project will be permanently incorporated into the Botanical-Orchidarium, transforming it into a unique creative source where orchid specimens become the stars of the composition.

A Unique Fusion of Nature and Technology

Artist and researcher Alejandro Fernández, who developed the project, explains that while plants do not emit notes in the traditional sense, they generate detectable bioelectrical impulses. These impulses are linked to their physiological processes and their reactions to the environment, such as light, humidity, temperature, or the presence of visitors.

The technological and artistic process that translates these impulses into a sound experience works as follows: specific sensors are installed on orchid specimens to continuously measure their bioelectrical variations, known as biodata.

These sensors send signals to an audiovisual engine. The system interprets and maps each electrical variation into specific musical parameters, including tone, pitch, dynamics, rhythm, density, and timbre of the sound.

Each orchid connected to a sensor feeds its own virtual instrument, creating distinct sound lines that interact within the space. This results in a generative composition that changes every moment and never exactly repeats, rather than fixed melodies or background noises.

Simultaneously, the biodata alters the movement, density, and behaviour of digital particles and 3D models of different orchid species on a central screen.

Artist's Vision for 'Listen to the Invisible'

Alejandro Fernández explains that this piece operates as “a bridge between biology and aesthetics,” allowing visitors to make perceptible a dimension of plant life that usually remains invisible and inaudible. The work was developed by Fernández within Molino Lab, an artistic experimentation space in Salamanca, and promoted under the 'Biotic Symphony' project.