The #tag project was developed from the official release of Twitter’s 2010 Year in Review. In Twitter’s year in review they provide the top hash tags, trending topics, celebrities, and re-tweets that were posted over the course of the year. This review is released annually. In this particular installation, a commercially available product called the Magic Message Plant is able to reveal a special message or image as the plant sprouts. In this case, the Magic Plants have been specifically ordered and designed to literally grow and reveal one of the top five twitter hash tags of 2010. Thus the plant literally becomes a participant in the twitter community, however, physically and not virtually. Each seedling has been modified to become a plant that reveals text on itself  (a #tag) as it grows, thus it becomes a physically tweeting plant. The lighting given to each plant is a calculation dependent on the amount of tweets that incorporate the specific hash tag that the seedling reveals. The more each specific hash tag is posted, the more light that specific plant with the corresponding hash tag is given. #tag is meant for the viewer to consider the rapid rate at which their tweets and hash tags can be shared online in comparison with the time at which it takes for the magic plant to grow and reveal its tweet. The overall plan for this installation is that the seedlings are grown, reveal their own hash tag, and then are to be planted into gardens of willing participants and art institutions. #tag gardens will exist as markers of not only social trends and topics but as a physical network (or garden) of “tweeting” plants.

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Illuminators, Resin & Bess Beetles, 2012