SoniDOME: Timothy Weaver, Jonathan Berger, Jody Deming, Jen Biddle & Zac Cooper

C.psychrerythraea 34H

FILE Sao Paulo 2019 | Hypersonica
Electronic Language International Festival

 

 

‘C. psycherythraea 34H’ is a work of “protein music” that seeks to explore sonically the creative and scientific portrayal of the extremes of life in the Earth’s polar regions and ocean depths. The sonic work is a transcoding (from amino acid sequence notation to sound) of the Arctic genomic/proteomic sequence of the protein matrix that facilitates the survival and protection of an extremophile microbial culture – Colwellia psycherythraea 34H. The artistic and scientific processes involved in the research and the resulting work have involved scientific and oceanographic expeditions to the poles and the oceans to sample the extremes of life. The genetic makeup of the extremophile microbial culture is then sequenced and sent to the project artists for digital transcoding into sound, for a collaborative and shared listening to the genome/proteome. The intent of these art-science processes is to expand the spectrum of sensoria for interpreting and expressing the survival of lifeforms in extreme conditions and for their study as analogs for possible habitats on a younger Earth and exoplanets across the universe.

Bio.

The soniDOME Project is a US National Academy of Sciences art-science investigation into novel means to experience ocean microbial ecosystems, from the polar ice to the deepest seas, expanding the perception of the extremes of Earth’s biosphere through sound. The artist-scientists of soniDOME are Timothy Weaver, biomedia artist/bioenvironmental engineer, Dr. Jonathan Berger, visionary opera/electroacoustic composer, Dr. Jody Deming, arctic explorer/microbial oceanographer, Dr. Jennifer Biddle, dark biosphere ecologist and Zac Cooper biological oceanographer.