The Cellular Fidelity

Laser-encoded sound installation bridging microbial ecosystems and human interaction · Solo Exhibition, Alte Schieberkammer, Vienna · Finalist, Media Architecture Biennale 2023, Transmedial Media Architecture Award

The Cellular Fidelity creates a three-dimensional aquarium that breaks its boundaries using light and sound. Audio is encoded into lasers that project through microscopic aquatic environments into the gallery space. On the floor is a cast, colourful view of what, in reality, is floating tiny and suspended above the visitors' heads. The laser reveals its sound when a visitor steps into the shared aquatic space holding a sensor. Field recordings from the collection sites of 30 groups of marine microbes fill the space, bending, humming, and distorting with the visitor's movement.

But the audio changes without a visitor as well: because the audio-encoded laser first travels through the microbes' environment, they are the first beings to make contact with it. When a cellular shape runs across the floor, the audio reshapes in response to an actual microbe's interaction with the laser up above, movement from above made visible and audible from below.

The microbes' movements create a sound for the visitors. The visitors' movements create a sound for the microbes. The light is shaped from both directions. Communication goes two ways. In The Cellular Fidelity, everyone is invited to step, or propel themselves, into a relationship of mutual observation.

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