SOUND TO SHAPE
Sound to Shape is a site-specific installation that features live microorganisms, sound and stripped back speakers. It looks into the social life of bacteria using sound waves to visualise the ‘chemical tweets’ of microorganisms as exceptionally beautiful and rare image patterns.
From the Soundscape series, and part of the body of work Objectivity [tentative], Sound to Shape explores the intersection of art, science and technology while looking into biological systems of self-organisation. The work examines the immense complexity within seemingly simple structures and the formation of shapes, patterns and network systems in nature, and the process of achieving dramatically varied results with slight alterations in initial settings.
The protagonist, a ‘smart’ microorganism bacterium, performs complex social behavior with rich communication patterns, each with an exceptional and unique, imagery outcome. Sound to Shape examines morphogenesis and the complex networks and decision making of microorganisms that ‘grow images’ based on various applied sound frequencies.
Audio waves are transmitted through liquid agar-medium as it solidifies and forms sound-generated topographies for the bacterium to grow on throughout the entire exhibition. These surface shape arrangements created through sound experiments affect the bacterium’s growth and its unique pattern forming.
About the artist:
Nurit Bar-Shai is a multimedia artist working at the interface between art, science and technology. She was exhibited at the Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem, the OK-Center in Linz, The National Art Center Tokyo, SESI Gallery in Sao Paulo, the Science Gallery in Dublin, The State Museum of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki and The Center for Digital Art in Israel. Bar-Shai received a Prix Ars Electronica 2007 Honorary Mention, the 11th Japan Media Arts Festival Jury Award, ETC Finishing Funds award, funded by NYSCA, ARTIS - Contemporary Israeli Art Fund Grant, and was commissioned by Turbulence.org, with funds from The Greenwall Foundation and with funds from The Jerome Foundation. Bar-Shai is the co-founder and the Art and Culture Director at Genspace NYC, Inc., a community Bio- Tech lab in Brooklyn NY.
NURIT BAR-SHAI [US]