Living Instruments
Living Instruments is a collaborative project between London-based musician Serge Vuille (under the umbrella of his project WeSpoke) and the DIY biology community of the Swiss-based open laboratory Hackuarium.
It is a musical composition for a series of instruments that use bacteria, yeast and other living organisms to generate music. By interacting with the organisms and recording the sounds, gas bubbles, pressure, and movements they generate, the artists can transform data into music, creating a live, semi-improvised musical piece.
The final deliverable was a concert/performance that took place on February 10th 2016, at the music and performance art venue Le Bourg, in Lausanne, Switzerland. More information about the event can be found here.
The concert was followed by a workshop/masterclass at the Lift conference on innovation and digital technologies in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 12th 2016. More information about the workshop can be found here.
In August 2016, the performance was part of WeSpoke "carte blanche" at the International Summer Course for New Music. It was presented as a workshop on "Biochemistry and white noise" on Saturday August 13th at the Lichtenbergschule and performed entirely on Sunday August 14th at the venue Centralstation.
What
EN - This collaboration aims at three goals:
- To built a set of living instruments that use biological information or organisms as sources of signal.
- To compose a musical piece (creation) using these instrument and turning their output signal into sound.
- Place this project in the context of the current state of DIY, science and music.
FR - Cette collaboration a trois buts:
- Construire des instruments vivants (intégrant le vivant comme source de signal)
- Création d'une œuvre musicale (composition) en utilisant ces instruments
- Placer la démarche collaborative dans le contexte DIY, scientifique, et musical
Who is involved?
- Serge Vuille, musician
- Vanesa Lorenzo, product & media designer
- Luc Henry, biologist and science communicator
- Robert Torche, sound designer
- Oliver Keller, electronics and IT specialist
- We Spoke musicians
When
EN - The piece was performed at three locations in 2016.
FR - La pièce a été jouée à trois reprises en 2016.
What's Next
More to come! The project is meant to live beyond the 2016 events. If you want to help us bring Living Instruments to new audiences, get in touch! In any case, we will update you on the next residence and events dedicated to bringing living instruments to life!
Description of the installation
The following instruments were used for the world premiere performed at the music venue Le Bourg in Lausanne on February 12th 2016, and later at the International Summer Course for New Music on August 14th 2016.
Bubble Organ
The concept
The Bubble Organ is an instrument powered by fermenting yeast cultures.
This video of the first minutes of the performance will give you an idea of the sounds produced by this instrument.
The setup
The following items are necessary for the construction of the Bubble Organ:
- 5x Erlenmeyer flasks (1x 10L, 1x 4L, 1x 3L, 1x 2L, 1x 1L, 1x 0.5L)
- 5x S-shaped "Double Bubble" airlocks for beer and wine fermentation
- 5x 1500mm plastic tubing (6x1.5mm)
- 10x LED
- 1x Arduino MEGA equipped with a USB host shield.
- 1x 12V power supply
- 1x USB cable 2m (Arduino to computer)
- 1x ION Discover keyboard USB
- 1x USB cable 1m (keyboard to Arduino)
The circuit
The controller for this instrument was based on a Arduino Mega equipped with an Arduino USB host shield.
The complete code can be found here.
The software
Tube Log
Moss Carpet
The concept
The moss carpet was designed and realised by Vanesa Lorenzo.
This video will give you an idea of the sounds produced by this instrument.
The setup
The circuit
The controller for this instrument was based on a Arduino Uno.
The software
Virtual Soprano
Paramecia Controller
Paramecia Bolero
Log
The details of the preparation are recorded live here
A budget and shopping list for this project will be shared later on.
Final days 01-08.02.2016
When?
Every day 1st-8th February 10am - 8pm (or midnight.. depending on the day)
Who was there?
- Serge Vuille
- Vanesa Lorenzo
- Luc Henry
- Alain Vuille
- Oliver Keller
- Robert Torche
- We Spoke musicians (7-8th Feb)
What?
Paramecia controller
After several prototypes, the SeePack microscope camera was replaced by a Logitech C270. The device was built according to previously described design (instruction video here) except the bottom acrylic glass plate was kept intact (with a piece of dark paper underneath). A rubber joint was also added between the two acrylic glass plates (see picture below).
The joystick was the Play-Zone Arduino PS2.
Urs from GaudiLabs has also described a similar module (instruction video here).
The whole device
The circuit and the joystick
The chamber
N/O/D/E Festival
What?
Several prototypes of the Living Instruments project were featured at the N/O/D/E digital culture festival.
The 2016 edition was about Algoritmes and Big Data and hosted a theremin annual meet up.
The festival is organised By Association Longueur d’Ondes (coordination & programmation: Coralie Ehinger & Julie Henoch).
Where?
The Meet & Geek Laboratory
2nd floor at "Pole Sud" Cultural Center in Lausanne.
When?
30.01.2016 from 9am to 6pm
Who was there?
- Vanesa Lorenzo
- Luc Henry
- Alain Vuille
Construction weeks 25-29.01.2016
When?
Every day 25th-29th January 10am - 6pm (or midnight.. depending on the day)
Connecting FaceOSC to MaxMSP to tryout sound patterns.
Who was there?
What?
Blubblob Pond
Blob with sea water organisms from a local pet store in a crystal ball, with camera, laser cut structure on transparent polyvinyl and metal screws and nuts.
Connected to MaxMSP.
Facetracker Tree
Tryouts with soundpatterns.
Construction weeks 18-25.01.2016
When?
Every day 11-16th and 18th-25th January 9am - 5pm (or midnight.. depending on the day)
Who was there?
- Serge Vuille
- Vanesa Lorenzo
- Luc Henry
- Alain Vuille
- Gilda Vonlanthen
- Olivier Keller
Building the modules
Wiring:
The whole system was wired using twisted-pair cables from Ethernet cables.
To avoid confusion, the 4 types of components were wired using a colour code (see picture below).
Fermentation cultures:
We used pure brewing yeast cultures growing in YPD medium and feeding on glucose to produce CO2 gas:
- Starting from 2mL dense culture (from overnight growth from plate) in 250 mL fresh medium.
- The next day, the dense culture were complemented with 50 mL of 40% glucose solution (not sterile) -> 8% final glucose concentration.
- The cultures started producing CO2 after 30 min (2 mL CO2 per minute)
- The cultures could be used after 90 minutes (5 mL CO2 per minute)
Bubble sensors:
Bubble sensors we built using a white LED and a photodiode. The setup was inserted in a wooden clothespin.
Prototype of the bubble sensor before wiring
Scheme of light sensor clip wiring for testing
An option for the calibration of the sensors was explored based on a tutorial proposed by Arduino.
Microphones:
Microphone/Headphone Amplifier Stereo DIY kit (MK136, Velleman) were purchased from Distrelec and build according to instructions.
Paramecia tracking device:
SeePack microscope camera (see picture below) was mounted on our Carl Zeiss Axiolab E re microscope.
The EasyCapViewer 0.6.2 software was used as a player to record live images.
Mossphone:
Hunting the moss, building the platform and wiring it to Arduino.
Program in IDE Arduino.
HOW TO PROGRAM/WIRE TO ARDUINO AND COMMUNICATE WITH MAXMSP soon on Github.
FacetrackerTree:
A device that tracks human expression and a code to translate it to sound patterns.
Code on OpenFrameWorks here FaceOSC [1]
HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH MAXMSP soon on Github.
Prototyping Week-end 19-21.09.2015
When?
Saturday 19th September 11am - 7pm
Sunday 20th September 10am - 8pm
Monday 21st September 10am - 6pm
Who was there?
- Serge Vuille
- Vanesa Lorenzo
- Luc Henry
- Michael Pereira
Brainstorming Session
We spent those three days brainstorming at UniverCité, trying to design 'instruments' that we could play, based on fermenting yeast cultures.
The 'instruments' we envisage would be driven by living organisms that produce work we can turn into sound. The most obvious example is fermentation (microorganisms eating glucose and rejecting alcohol and CO2) producing a gas that one can use to make bubbles, sounds, etc.
These instruments can fall into 3 categories:
LIVE - AUTONOMOUS AND COMPUTER INTERACTION No need for a human being to work in order to produce a sound from the living organisms activity.
- Gas producing fermentation broth (Bacteria and yeast) and gas-machine interactions
- Insects (moths, fruit flies) movement recognition software
LIVE - HUMAN INTERACTION A human subject will read a score written by living organisms and play an 'instrument' according to this score
- Keyboard and microscopic score -> observe microorganisms in water from local pond -> organisms move in microscope field on "score" slide
RECORDED - COMPUTER INTERACTION A recorded signal from an organism is used as a score and played either directly by a computer or by a human subject.
- Using for example genomic data (from the organisms used in other 'instruments') to generate sound. This could be simple (ATGC into tunes) or complex (use of amino acids triplex).
Building the first prototype
Together with Serge Vuille, our musician in residence, we designed and built a series of living instrument prototypes.
(Thanks biodesign.cc for the soldering iron!)
Overview of the prototype:
Before we go into too much details, you can check the video!
Now a bit more details. Below you find a picture of the setting, the recipe to produce CO2 from yeast fermentation and a scheme of the bubble detector device.
Tubing set-up:
A. is the 250mL yeast culture producing the CO2.
B. is the electronic circuit that allows our Arduino UNO board to make a variable sound when gas bubbles are going through the glass tube filled with ink-coloured water.
C. is simply a photodiode that will sense white light (from white LEDs) when the bubbles pass by.
Fermentation cultures:
We used two different types of cultures to produce CO2 gas:
As a test, we used random culture from rotting fruits juice.
- Blackberries were squashed into a juice and diluted with 1/5 water (40 mL into 160 mL) and the mixture stirred at room temperature. There was an immediate production of CO2 gas.
To get something more reproducible, we used pure brewing yeast cultures feeding on glucose.
- The composition of the overnight medium was as follow: 2.5g YE, 5g Peptone, 5g glucose