Lab-grown ‘brain’ made of late composers’ blood cells creates new music posthumously – DJ Mag

The late American avant-garde composer Alvin Lucier donated his blood to the Australian project before his death in 2021
A new exhibition in Australia presents a live musical „performance“ by a lab-grown „brain“ made from the blood of late American avant-garde composer Alvin Lucier.  
Lucier — an accomplished experimental composer and sound artist whose works include ‚I Am Sitting In A Room‘ –  agreed to donate his blood to the Art Gallery of Western Australia’s Revivification project in Perth in 2020 while suffering from Parkinson’s disease at the age of 89. He passed away in late 2021 from complications related to a fall. 
The Revivification collective – comprising artists Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson and Matt Gingold and neuroscientist Stuart Hodgetts – has created an artificial „in-vitro brain“ for its exhibition, which composes a new, posthumous score in real time for visitors to witness. 
To create this project, Lucier’s white blood cells were reprogrammed into stem cells by Harvard Medical School scientists. The stem cells were then „differentiated“ into „cerebral organoids“ — which are „three-dimensional structures that resemble a developing human brain“.
The Guardian describes the organoids in a brass plinth at the centre of the exhibition as „two white blobs, like a tiny pair of jellyfish“. That structure sends signals out to the 20 brass plates, mallets and speaker-like transducers  that are mounted around the room, which then play tones in response. As the Guardian explains: „Importantly, Lucier’s organoids don’t just produce sound – they also receive it. Microphones in the gallery pick up ambient noise, including human voices and the resonant tones of the plates, and that audio data is converted into electrical signals and fed back into the brain.“
„At its heart, Revivification is more than a tribute to Alvin Lucier — it is a direct extension of his cellular life, and a radical reimagining of artistic immortality,“ said Thompson in a press statement. „…This transformation (from his own blood to a tiny lab grown brain — living outside of, and beyond his body) creates a ‚surrogate performer’ — a living, autonomous entity that through its agency continues his artistic journey.“
Revivification is running at AGWA until 3rd August. Entry is free. Find more exhibition information here.
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