Adult STEM Playtime with Electroculture
Reigniting your childhood sense of wonder and creativity...
What if I told you that the secret to a more fulfilling adult life might just be buried in your garden soil, charged with creativity and scientific discovery? Welcome to the world of electroculture!
For those not in the know, electroculture is the science (& art!) of making plants grow faster, with larger yields, more nutrient-dense & flavorful fruits - using electricity! (and other energies, too). This world of electroculture is more than just applying electricity to plants - there’s actually a ton to it as it is inclusive of many different scientific disciplines ranging from soil science, electrochemistry, to ancient architecture, and so on… There’s also an artistic side to it… one that can be seen by the many fantastic creations that people post about every day on our Facebook community, Electroculture Beginners to Advanced.
Over my 20+ years of playing with electroculture, I have discovered that this amazing field feeds me and my soul in SO MANY ways! It has added to my love of science and discovery, evoked my longtime desire to become an artist and sculptor and expanded me in ways beyond those I ever imagined - from learning how to do concrete casting, Internet of Things product design, and other aspects of making product design… to running a massive community and having a podcast! I must say that I never thought I would find so much satisfaction from a single hobby…. because - when I was younger, while trying to find myself and those things that made me click, I was jumping from hobby to hobby, over and over, wasting time and money trying to find something to do that really resonated with me. After finding electroculture, it’s been a deep-dive ever since… into so many fascinating areas!
Rediscovering Play in Adulthood
In early collaborations with other early modern electroculture experimenters like Yannick Van Doorne and Andrea Donnolli, they talked about getting together for “Playing Electroculture” - which was their term for tinkering and experimenting. It’s a term that I’ve grown rather fond of because it’s this sense of play as an adult that’s been a source of endless discovery for me. This tinkering and discovery has provided me with all sorts of skill-building chops and the overall satisfaction of playfully creating just for creations’ sake. Something I still do to this day.
This takes me back to my earliest memories of playing in my grandmothers’ home… she was an artist… a rather well known one in her genre, as her art ended up in a few permanent gallery installations. Growing up with her in my life - spending lots of time at her house, playing and exploring her studio with paint splatters all over the floors and massive canvases all over the place evoked such awe in me that I too wanted to become an artist someday. Originally, when I went into engineering it was to be able to combine my love of science with that of creative interactive sculptures… that never happened, but now, with my deep dive into electroculture I’ve found that I love working in a number of different media - from clay to concrete, wire art and electronics. This is even expanding into new domains like biology and the blending of hard science, spirituality, and healing as well.
As an adult, especially with jobs, stress, kids, and all the other things that encompass modern adult life - I find myself constantly yearning for more down-time, friend-time, and even play-time. In my earlier years I liked video games, but as I grew to find myself, I wanted to be more connected to the energies of life - the energies of Earth and the consciousness of Nature. Working with electroculture allows for all of this!
Play is incredibly important for our natural unfolding and mental health. For a brief read on the subject, I just read Todd Hargrove’s article, on the subject (regarding kids and playtime) and really enjoyed it. I think most of this applies to the adult side of play as well…
Play for me means tinkering and playing in the garden. For example, one fun project of mine was taking a wind-powered kinetic sculpture and turning it into an electroculture stimulator. It was a fun project to put together and it looked neat, too!
What’s great is that our community is showing that the this idea of play and creative exploration is alive and well…. From the most basic of spiral antennas to those that include crystals and different shapes and colors, like this one from Robert James Peters.
or this one from Andrea Donnoli:
Electroculture as a Gateway to Science
As one with a natural inclination for science, I completely fell in love with this field. It was so amazing to find a field that hit all my buttons, especially on the science side of things. Check out this graphic:
From playing with electroculture, I discovered so many things that really fascinated me and made me want to learn and experiment more. Even things I never thought I would ever get into when I was younger, have totally changed. For instance, I was never into archaeology beyond anything from pop culture like Indiana Jones movies, but as I learned about the Ancients’ use of large mounts and temples for fertility enhancing rituals, and that the civilizations that used those structures flourished… it totally wowed me! And it goes much further than that - from megalithic monuments to dolmens, electrically charged waterways running through rock… my imagination exploded into multiple deep dives into this amazing world. The same goes for the other topics in the diagram above.
As an example, living in St. Louis, I’ve visited our local sacred site, Cahokia Mounds, a number of times… but now, with this new knowledge and understanding, whenever I visit there I have a totally new sense of appreciation for the site….
As I write this I’m now thinking that it would be a fun experiment to show up at daybreak for some seed-charging experiments - to take advantage of this benefit I have living here. If anything, it would be a cool experiment to do with my kids and teach them about electromagnetics, high voltage charge collection from the atmosphere, and so on. Mixing playtime with local field trips and history.
In fact, adding to the creativity side of thing, I’m now interested in tinkering around with making my own “megalithic” structures in the garden… Using large standing stones and rock formations, like the ancients did - as part of my next-level of garden design… All for fun, and discovery, too!
The next time you’re looking to build an antenna or atmospheric charge collector… take a little time to learn some of the scientific principles behind it. As you understand the science of electroculture more, it will open your mind to new sources of creativity that will be a ton of fun to explore!
Conclusion
As you can see, I’m very passionate about electroculture and I’m sure you’ll also get really into it - especially if you’re in love with learning and the joy of tinkering and experimenting! I’d like to encourage all of you to take on the beginners’ mindset, no matter where you are in life - whether you’re an expert in this or that, or just learning… electroculture, despite being thousands of years’ old, is in my mind still a “young” science - as there is so much that we still do not know and have yet to discover.
Beyond that, I’d like to encourage you to experiment as much as possible and share your creations and results in our community! Have fun with it - I’d love to see what you create!
Learn More!
Looking to learn more about electroculture - check out my book, the first modern book on the subject, Electro-Horticulture: The Secret to Faster Growth, Larger Yields, and More… Using Electricity!
In my book I teach the essentials of electroculture from a practical scientific standpoint. It was written slowly, over time, thoroughly researched, and not written with AI. Pick up a copy today via the link above! If you want more, I design and sell unique electroculture products for the experimenter and serious electroculture grower alike, available at my web-store, HarvestStorm.com - check it out!
How has playing with electroculture impacted your life? Have you been playing and making more because of it? Let us know by leaving a comment!
-David "The Stem Wizard” Wechsler