"Oxygen Flute, a Computer Music Instrument that Grows"
                               Chris Chafe
                                 CCRMA,
                         Stanford University
Oxygen Flute creates an active relationship between the viewer and a group of 
bamboo plants growing in the installation; each participant walks up the 
stairs into a walled chamber, closes the door, and breathes. Through a 
sensor-based computer program, the participant's breath within the 
plant-filled environment is translated into music. 

Oxygen Flute operates according to the Carbon Cycle, an invisible and 
imperceptible process that is a necessary condition for sustaining life. With 
each breath, humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. At the same 
time, the bamboo in the installation absorbs carbon dioxide and releases 
oxygen. Oxygen Flute converts this cycle into real-time music, allowing the 
participant to hear the carbon dioxide in their breath as the bamboo absorbs 
it. 

The materials and sounds in Oxygen Flute are all related. For example, the 
skin of the chamber is made of silicone, which is produced naturally by the 
bamboo as a kind of bark. Bamboo is a fast-growing plant with a particularly 
rapid carbon dioxide metabolism. The sounds are computer-generated but based 
on ancient Chinese flutes, similar in sound to traditional bamboo flutes. The 
paper describes the musical processes at work in the piece.