Genes, Memes and Dots

Abstract

GeneMusiK is an artistic project that puts into play ideas about the capacity of physical morphologies to act as mnemonic systems by using DNA to transcode and re-mix musical structures. The project suggests that both biological and cultural information can function as both macro and the micro scale structures arrayed as physical loci and topologies that function as keys to the mapping of memory.

The author’s attraction to this ongoing series of sound-works that combine human and biological agency to re-invent musical scores is directly proportional to the difficulty of the undertaking with its unpredictable outcomes and high failure rate. As a generative method the outcome is surrendered to the stochastic process of biological transformation, a strategy that substantially erodes the human agency and control invested in authorship. Ultimately the work is returned to the human sphere in the form of live musical performance that carries with it the additional complications of nuanced interpretation and virtuosity, all of which combine to create a fluid matrix of cultural, social and biological exchange that act to flesh-out life-forms (as forms of life) across temporal and spatial barriers.

Notes

1 The Sonic Visualiser software was developed in the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. Sonic Visualiser is an application for analysis, visualization, and annotation of music audio files.