Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Plymouth
The Fragmented Orchestra
The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge distributed musical structure modelled on the firing of the human brain's neurons. Twenty-four sites around the UK are connected to each other to form a “neural” network. The sonic information captured at these sites is transmitted over the internet, causing other sites to “fire”.
Grant collaborated with Matthias and Ryan to develop a fully immersive and participatory sonic art environment. The aim of the project was to build a huge distributive, participatory and evolving ‘instrument’ using a spiking artificial neuronal network. The work is transdisciplinary, spanning art, contemporary music and computational neuroscience and is centred on the inherent rhythms and adaptive learning of spiking neurons and ambient sounds of the sites. Each of the 24 sites housed a soundbox which was stimulated by participants. Research questions were concerned with (i) the manner in which the ambient and participatory sound stimulated the adaptive code, (ii) how the stimulation affected the adaptation of the resulting ambient and participatory-triggered sound patterns and (iii) how the rhythms of the sounds from the sites interacted with the rhythms of the neurons. Each time a sound event happened at one of the sites the corresponding neuron caused the site to ‘fire’ and send a tiny fragment of human-made or ambient sound to a specific speaker at FACT where it was heard alongside the 23 other speakers sonifying specific locations. Visitors could further compose the piece as they moved through the large space of the gallery. The combined sound of the 24 speakers at the gallery was continuously transmitted back to each of the 24 sites affording the participant to hear the effect that their playing had on the ‘cortex’ as a whole. The Fragmented Orchestra may be situated within the broader legacy of indeterminate environmental sound works. The work uses a biological model as a ‘filter’ with which to listen to and also to participate with. The model affords indeterminacy and learning/adaptive behaviours at two very different and significant scales, that of the miniscule, the connections between groups of firing neurons and the vast geographical space of the UK.
