This is an invitation for you to become the explorer of the force of technology, to enter the realm where the biological and non biological are no longer anything but a type of material that technology as dynamic force deals with and manipulates through the hands of human beings.
By opening the Mycophone, a biohacked music box, you can explore a new kind of biotech organism that makes sounds like many biological organisms do and if you pet it on its hairy mycelium fur its voice changes, and it could be said that it starts to purr. Like any other biological being it needs maintenance to exist and care to live to its highest potential.
And like any other organism it has patterns, repetitive processes, which have to be met for it to exist and to live. They are there to process the signal that has been put into the box with the energy from the windup key of the music box. These patterns are seen as visual, graphical patterns on the laminate that translates the signal and is heard as repetitive sound. The repetitions can be transformed by the biological part of the box, by the growth of mycelia as well as proximity or touch of a hand of the explorer, the care-provider of the mycophone.
produced by: Interactivos? ’12 Ljubljana: Studiolab, Medialab-Prado, Ljudmila, SGMK
Saša Spačal (SI)
Saša Spačal is a postmedia artist working at the intersection of the living systems research, contemporary and sound art. Her artistic research focuses on entanglements of the environment-culture continuum and planetary metabolism. By developing technological interfaces and relations with organic and mineral soil agents, she seeks to address the posthuman condition that involves mechanical, digital, and organic logic within biopolitics and necropolitics. Her work has been exhibited and performed at venues and festivals such as Ars Electronica Festival (AT), Prix Cube Exhibition (FR), Transmediale Festival (DE), Athens Digital Arts Festival (GR), Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (RUS), Onassis Cultural Center Athens (GR), Chronos Art Center (CHN), Eyebeam (USA), Cynetart Festival (DE), National Art Museum of China (CHN), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (SI), Kapelica Gallery (SI), Device_art (CRO), Art Laboratory Berlin (DE), Kiblix Festival (SI), Gallery of Contemporary Art Celje (SI), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (SRB), Lisboa Soa Festival (PT), Sonica Festival (SI). She has received various awards, including the Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention, nomination for the Prix Cube, and the New Technological Art Award.
contact: https://www.agapea.si/
Mirjan Švagelj (SI)
Mirjan Švagelj obtained a PhD in biomedicine from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ljubljana. As a scientist, he works in research and development in the field of applied biochemistry and biotechnology. As an artist, he works at the intersection of biotechnology, microbiology and intermedia art.
