Microbiophonic Emergences // Adomas Palekas

Ongoing performances:
Thursday 20th: 2-7pm
Friday 21st: 2-7pm
Saturday 22nd: 2-4pm

About the exhibition:

To live on earth is to exist within a multitude of biotic and abiotic worlds at once. One consumes energy, stores it and gives it away. One moves, vibrates, and is moved and vibrated. One always hears, and one always has a voice, an interior resonance, that interacts with all the exterior resonances. One doesn’t even need to live – one can be a carbon crystal, or a virus, and yet Live on Earth.

We, humans, are partially comprised of microbes: the trillion bacteria living inside our gut and on our skin. Since the oxygenation of the atmosphere, or a few billion years after – the primate chimp intoxicating on fermented fruit, to the rise of modern medicine, wine and genetic engineering – our somatic and intellectual existence is entangled with the microbial other. As holobionts, we intersect with microorganisms in our every bite, every breath and every word. Together we listen and speak – we share environments of sound in our ears and throats, as well as many still uncharted vibratory worlds outside our sense perception and awareness.

Microbiophonic emergences delves into sound, and other sensory interrelations that bridge our world to the intangibly small microbial milieu. It’s an inquiry upon how cells hear and voice, how the sonic medium alongside others – olfactory, gustatory and visual – entangles interspecific bodies, thoughts and emotions. Within the presented emergences site specific microbial species, molecular interactions, drifting temperature and even gravity construct a composition of sound, taste and smell. As the biotic and abiotic worlds meet our ears, a question comes how it extends our understanding towards the intangible others? Could a new sonic interaction invoke sensations inspiring us to stray outside our anthropocentric viewpoint?

About the artist:

Adomas Palekas (Vilnius,LT) – sound artist, engineer and biotechnologist working at the intersection of science and art. His current focus is creating circuits of extended phenotype – sound devices that invite biotic and abiotic worlds to enact upon the music making process. With these interfaces, Adomas explores processes beyond our sonic perception: microbial metabolism, (in)organic bodies or chemical reactions, which become the primary compositional forces in his emergent sound works. His creative practice involves design of musical instruments and environment sensing interfaces, performance, field recordings, sound collage, work with recycled/upcycled materials. Further, he is involved with DIY communities Studium-P and Palanga Street Radio. Adomas’s works and collaborations have been presented in various spaces across Lithuania, Italy, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, UK, Czechia as well as international festivals such as “Ars Electronica”, “ŪMĖDĖ“, “REWIRE 2023“, “Gaudeamus“, Venice Architecture Biennial. Currently he’s doing a masters research on microbial voicing and listening (Den Haag, NL).

Artist Instagram 

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Design By Ruben Visser