CellF - live performance, Sydney 10th & 12th June

I had the pleasure of seeing CellF again. The performance was held at the National Art School, Sydney.

This is cybernetics applied to synthesizers & electronic music.

 Norbert Wiener defined cybernetics in 1948 as "the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine"

There are many people involved with this project, but the main individuals are :
Guy Ben-Ary who donated the original skin cells,
Nathan Thompson who designed the housing/incubator and
Andrew Fitch of NonLinearCircuits (NLC) who designed the synthesizer itself.

For more info, click here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/the-cellf-project-university-of-western.html

Guy's skin cells were converted into neurons using stem cell technology.
These were then grown on an array of 60 electrodes which connect the cells to the NLC synthesizer.

The incubator/cells are housed in the glass cube:

These cells can both receive and send information with the outside world via these electrodes.

I think Andrew's synth is just as important.
Some pics:

It's the translator between the cells & the outside world.

So what does this all sound like? I've seen & heard CellF on a number of occasions and the sounds are always changing & developing.
Friday's performance used a fresh batch of cells which sounded very excitable & energetic.
It was at times hard to distinguish the synthesizer keyboard (Yamaha)  from the cells.

Sunday's performance used a drummer, a double bass & a violinist.
I quite enjoyed this. The space between sounds allowed the cells to be better heard.

Maybe they were also tired after the last 3 days.