Skip to content
1981
Volume 23, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 1477-965X
  • E-ISSN: 1758-9533

Abstract

This article examines (2025), a practice-based research project by Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson, Matt Gingold and Stuart Hodgetts in which cerebral organoids, grown from composer Alvin Lucier’s blood, activate a set of gong instruments in a gallery installation. The work extends Lucier’s experiments with neurofeedback and indeterminate processes into a biotechnological domain: the organoids generate a continuous musical texture shaped by biological feedback but cannot bring their activity to an end. This contrast frames a broader inquiry into how human action differs from the automatic behaviour of engineered organisms. I argue that the capacity to interrupt or cease patterned activity – present in Lucier’s use of indeterminacy – marks a key difference between humans and the organoids in . Ben-Ary and his collaborators render this lineage of musical indeterminacy materially through bioengineering, placing the installation within broader discussions of automaticity, reproduction and agency. The article concludes that underscores a specifically human ability to terminate automatic processes in this context, a capacity made audible through the work’s musical and biological systems.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00148_1
2026-02-14
2026-04-15

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alyian, Steven (2025), ‘Revivification ARS Electronica submission reel (6 min)’, Vimeo, 21 March, https://vimeo.com/1068049297/a003bde84c. Accessed 21 March 2025.
  2. Arendt, Hannah ([1958] 2013), The Human Condition, 2nd ed., Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Ashley, Robert ([1976] 2005), Music with Roots in the Aether, DVD, USA: Lovely Music, Ltd.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Barrett, G Douglas (2023a), ‘Technological catastrophe and the robots of Nam June Paik’, Cultural Critique, 118:1, pp. 5682, https://doi.org/10.1353/cul.2023.0009.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Barrett, G Douglas (2023b), Experimenting the Human: Art, Music, and the Contemporary Posthuman, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bates, David (2013), ‘Cartesian robotics’, Representations, 124:1, pp. 4368, https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2013.124.1.43.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bates, David (2024), An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence: Thinking with Machines from Descartes to the Digital Age, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Batsis, Dimitri, Xenophon, Bitsikas, Anastasia, Georgaki, Angelos, Evaggelou and Panagiotis, Tigas (2012), ‘Biomusic: The carrier’, Technoetic Arts, 9:2–3, pp. 20916, https://doi.org/10.1386/tear.9.2-3.209_1.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Ben-Ary, Guy (2016), ‘cellF: Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson, Andrew Fitch, Darren Moore, Mike Edel, Stuart Hodgetts, Douglas Bakkum’, Guybenary, https://guybenary.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cellF-version-4.pdf. Accessed 27 August 2025.
  10. Ben-Ary, Guy (2024), ‘Notes_Revivification.docx’, 23 July, Zenodo, https://zenodo.org/records/17020123. Accessed 1 September 2025.
  11. Ben-Ary, Guy, Thompson, Nathan, Moore, Darren, Fitch, Andrew and Hodgetts, Stuart (2023), ‘Music for surrogate performer’, Micro-Music: Catalogue of the 67th International Festival of Contemporary Music, Venice: La Biennale Di Venezia, pp. 10413.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Ben-Ary, Guy, Thompson, Nathan, Gingold, Matt and Hodgetts, Stuart (2025), Revivification, installation, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 5 April–21 September.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Cage, John ([1955] 1961), ‘Experimental music: Doctrine’, in Silence: Lectures and Writings, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, pp. 1317.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Cage, John ([1957] 1961a), ‘Composition as process’, in Silence: Lectures and Writings, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, pp. 3540.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Cage, John ([1957] 1961b), ‘Experimental music’, in Silence: Lectures and Writings, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, pp. 712.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Catts, Oron and Zurr, Ionat (2007), ‘Semi-living art’, in E. Kac (ed.), Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 23148.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Dehaene, Stanislas (2010), Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read, New York: Penguin.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Descartes, René (1983), Traité de l’homme, vol. 11, Paris: Gallimard.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Edelman, Lee (2004), No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, Raleigh, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Ernst, Wolfgang (2019), ‘As slow as possible? On the machinic (non-)sense of the sonic present and digital indifference toward time’, ASAP/Journal, 4:3, pp. 67188, https://doi.org/10.1353/asa.2019.0044.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Fendler, Lynn (2010), Michel Foucault, New York: Bloomsbury.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Gordon, Theodore (2025), The Composer’s Black Box: Making Music in Cybernetic America, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Grba, Dejan and Todorović, Vladimir (2020), ‘Rendering life: Transgressive affinities between bio art and generative art’, Technoetic Arts, 18:2, pp. 22338, https://doi.org/10.1386/tear_00040_1.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Hui, Yuk (2019), Recursivity and Contingency, New York: Rowman & Littlefield International.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Joseph, Branden W. (2011), ‘Biomusic’, Grey Room, 45, pp. 12850, https://doi.org/10.1162/grey_a_00053.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Kac, Eduardo (2008), Telepresence and Bio Art: Networking Humans, Rabbits and Robots, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, pp. 29598.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Kac, Eduardo, Laval-Jeantet, Marion, Mangin, Benoît, de Menezes, Marta, Gessert, George and Vanouse, Paul (2017), ‘What bio art is: A manifesto’, Eduardo Kac, https://www.ekac.org/manifesto_whatbioartis.html. Accessed 27 August 2025.
  28. Kagan, Brett J., Kitchen, Andy C., Tran, Nhi T., Habibollahi, Forough, Khajehnejad, Moein, Parker, Bradyn J., Bhat, Anjali, Rollo, Ben, Razi, Adeel and Friston, Karl J. (2022), ‘In vitro neurons learn and exhibit sentience when embodied in a simulated game-world’, Neuron, 110:23, pp. 395269, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.09.001.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Kahn, Douglas (2013a), Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Kahn, Douglas (2013b), ‘Alvin Lucier: Brainwaves’, in Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth magnitude in the Arts, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 8392.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Koplin, Julian J. and Savulescu, Julian (2019), ‘Moral limits of brain organoid research’, The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 47:4, pp. 76067, https://doi.org/10.1177/1073110519897789.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Lavazza, Andrea and Massimini, Marcello (2018), ‘Cerebral organoids: Ethical issues and consciousness assessment’, Journal of Medical Ethics, 44:9, pp. 60610, https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2017-104555.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Lucier, Alvin (1939–2015), ‘Scores’, Alvin Lucier Papers 1939–2015, USA: New York Public Library.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Lucier, Alvin (1980), Chambers: Scores by Alvin Lucier. Interviews with the Composer by Douglas Simon, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Lucier, Alvin ([1965] 1980), ‘Music for Solo Performer: For enormously amplified brain waves and percussion’, in A. Lucier and D. Simon (eds), Chambers: Scores by Alvin Lucier. Interviews with the Composer by Douglas Simon, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, p. 67.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Malabou, Catherine (2019), Morphing Intelligence: From IQ Measurement to Artificial Brains, New York: Columbia University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. McClary, Susan (2002), Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Moravec, Hans (1988), Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Riskin, Jessica (2003), ‘The defecating duck, or, the ambiguous origins of artificial life’, Critical Inquiry, 29:4, pp. 599633, https://doi.org/10.1086/377722.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Shannon, Claude E. (1948), ‘A mathematical theory of communication’, The Bell System Technical Journal, 27:3, pp. 379423, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb01338.x.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. STEMCELL Technologies (2025), ‘STEMdiff™ Cerebral Organoid Maturation Kit’, STEMCELL Technologies, https://www.stemcell.com/stemdiff-cerebral-organoid-maturation-kit.html. Accessed 8 May 2025.
  42. Stiegler, Bernard (1998), Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Stiegler, Bernard (2018), The Neganthropocene (ed. and trans. D. Ross), London: Open Humanities Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Straebel, Volker and Thoben, Wilm (2014), ‘Alvin Lucier’s Music for Solo Performer: Experimental music beyond sonification’, Organised Sound, 19:1, pp. 1729, https://doi.org/10.1017/s135577181300037x.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. The Art Gallery of Western Australia (2025), ‘Revivification’, What’s On – Exhibitions, https://artgallery.wa.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/revivification/. Accessed 8 May 2025.
  46. Wachowski, Lana and Wachowski, Lilly (1999), The Matrix, USA: Warner Bros, Village Roadshow Pictures and Groucho Film Partnership.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Wiener, Norbert ([1948] 2019), Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Wolf, Maryanne (2008), Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, New York: HarperCollins.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Zurr, Ionat and Catts, Oron (2002), ‘An emergence of the semi-living’, in O. Catts (ed.), The Aesthetics of Care?, Perth: Symbiotica, pp. 6368.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Brennan, Rosamund (2025), ‘The composer still making music four years after his death: Thanks to an artificial brain’, The Guardian, 8 April, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/apr/09/alvin-lucier-dead-composer-making-music-ai-artificial-intelligence-brain. Accessed 8 April 2025.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Herrera-Poyatos, David, Peláez-González, Carlos, Zuheros, Cristina, Herrera-Poyatos, Andrés, Tejedor, Virilo, Herrera, Francisco and Montes, Rosana (2025), ‘An overview of model uncertainty and variability in LLM-based sentiment analysis: Challenges, mitigation strategies and the role of explainability’, arXiv, 6 April, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.04462.
  52. Lucier, Alvin (2012), Music 109: Notes on Experimental Music, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Pimentel, Marco A. F., Christophe, Clément, Raha, Tathagata, Munjal, Prateek, Kanithi, Praveen K. and Khan, Shadab (2024), ‘Beyond metrics: A critical analysis of the variability in large language model evaluation frameworks’, arXiv, 29 July, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2407.21072.
/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00148_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/tear_00148_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test