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Maestro of the swarm Truce: Strategies for Post-Apocalyptic Computation ROBIN MEIER AND ALI MOMENI Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes. Until 15 January.
Q&A Robin Meier
Swiss acoustic artist Robin Meier manipulates the sounds of insects and birds to create ethereal soundscapes. As his mosquito-inspired musical installation Truce is aired in the French city of Nantes, he talks about firefly synchrony and setting up feedback loops in nature.
Why did you choose to work with mosquitoes?
Male mosquitoes serenade potential mates with a 'love song' by vibrating their wings. They synchronize their wingbeats with those of the females to mate in mid-air. I first read about this in a 2006 paper by entomologist Gabriella Gibson and neurobiologist Ian Russell (Curr. Biol. 16, 1311-1316; 2006). The constant glissandi - gliding from one pitch to another - and 'tuning in' of mosquito wingbeats reminded me of dhrupad, an ancient form of Indian classical music often sung by brothers in unison. My collaborator Ali Momeni and I played male mosquitoes some dhrupad and, sure enough, they tuned in. We call the piece Truce: Strategies for Post-Apocalyptic Computation because we see it as one way that computation could evolve. In the future, the environment could become an extension of our cognitive processes.
How did you become interested...