For Brazilian scientist and composer Professor Eduardo Miranda, his new breakthrough in science is rather offbeat. His new piece, Biocomputer Music, explores the changes in slime mold as it responds to music.
Head of the Interdisciplinary Center for Computer Music Research (ICCMR) at Plymouth University, the scientist and his single-celled organism will perform the new composition at Biomusic, the 10th Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival.
The slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, is a frequenter of many laboratory cultures. It is very easy to grow in a closed environment, sure, but it also forms colonies easily visible to the naked eye and in a most vibrant color too.
But it's not an easy feat to turn mold into a music subject. Thus, to capture the slime mold's response to sound, Professor Miranda and his team designed a state-of-the-art musical bio-computer that translates electrical energy generated by movement into sound.
Something out of Egon Spengler's lab, absolutely, but can it get the Statue of Liberty to dance?
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