Sequence Music
A generative sound work that turns DNA sequenced live in the gallery into an audible, evolving system.
Sequence Music is a generative sound work made from DNA sequenced live in the gallery using a MinION device. Developed during a public workshop at Birmingham Open Media, the piece takes biological data gathered from the surrounding environment and translates it into a changing musical system. Rather than treating sequencing as something remote or specialist, the work brings it into public view and turns it into an audible process.
Rather than leaving sequencing inside a specialist workflow, the piece shifts it into a public, temporal form that can be heard as it changes. Biological data becomes less a code to decode than a structure for collective listening. This kind of translation, from hidden record to sensory experience, is a recurring move in May’s practice.
Additional notes
- Created as part of the Ingenious and Fearless Companions exhibition at Birmingham Open Media.
- Developed during a High Altitude Bioprospecting Space Biohack workshop involving artists, scientists, and members of the public.
- Environmental samples were collected on an air filter and sequenced in the gallery using a MinION device from Oxford Nanopore Technologies.
- The final generative music system was built in Fugio.
- The workshop involved the HAB team alongside Nick Loman and researchers from the Institute for Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham.
- Sound documentation: SoundCloud