Inspired by the poem by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver, “I Worried” is a series of modified street signs that replace typical regulatory language with lines of Oliver’s poem about anxiety, vulnerability, and evolution.
By attaching electrodes to leaves and human skin, I was able to record the sounds that plants make, as well as the sounds of my body and the bodies of friends and other artists as we meditated on different states of being – worry, love, connection. This music was combined with nature recordings (wind, birds, water, frogs) to make original compositions - when viewers walk by each sign, a solar-powered sound system is triggered that vibrates the thin aluminum of the sign, which acts a speaker, 'singing' each song.
