In Australia, the unusual art project called “Revivification” enables the experimental composer Alvin Lucier, who passed away in 2021, to continue making music with a laboratory-grown brain created from his DNA.

A new art project named “Revivification” in Australia involves a brain grown in a laboratory environment using the DNA of the late American experimental composer Alvin Lucier, producing music in real-time. ART, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY MEETING

The team of artists and a neuroscientist describe the project as an effort to shed light on the “dark but thought-provoking possibilities of transcending an individual’s existence beyond the finality of death.”

Central to the work is an “in-vitro brain” derived from blood samples donated by Lucier when he was alive. This mini-brain has been grown on a plane tethered to electrodes and linked to 20 large brass plates in the gallery. SOUND GENERATED BY THE BRAIN’S ELECTRICAL SIGNALS

Visitors experience a live sound experiment where the electrical signals sent by this brain trigger the hammers striking each brass plate. This creative setup represents a new form of generating music with brain waves. Additionally, the brain converts sound captured by microphones in the gallery into electrical signals, responsive to the external world. “EXISTENCE THROUGH MUSIC” AFTER DEATH

Lucier’s voluntary participation in this project is noteworthy. He was one of the first artists to utilize brain waves to create music. Even shortly before his passing, he arranged his music to play indefinitely. When artist Guy Ben-Ary explained the project to Lucier’s daughter, she stated that her father laughed, saying, “Exactly what would be expected of my dad.” IS A TRACE OF MEMORY POSSIBLE DESPITE LACK OF AWARENESS?

This mini-brain developed at Harvard Medical School was formulated with stem cells obtained from Lucier’s leukocytes. The research team transformed these cells into “cerebral organoids” resembling the developing human brain. While lacking consciousness, the interaction of this structure with its surroundings and being produced from Lucier’s biological material raises the question of whether “creativity can transcend death.”

According to artist Nathan Thompson, visitors who engage with the core of the project are “crossing a threshold” and observing “something unlike themselves but alive.”