Description

Cybernetic Spirits is an interactive electronic artwork, where participants generate sonic arrangements based on various sacred fluids. These include both historical liquids-of-workshop such as holy water, blood and breast milk as well as more contemporary ones such as gasoline and coconut water.

The visual installation consists of 12 glass lab flasks of these fluids with each connected to an electrode-sampling circuit that tests for electrical conductivity. The custom electronics are exposed with wires submerged into the various fluids, such that the installation resembles an electronic organism.

Participants can press aluminum buttons, which will play notes that correspond to the conductivity readings of that liquid. When they do so, an LED ring illuminates the fluid’s vial and the circuit will emit a corresponding tone, creating a chance-like orchestra based in the immaterial.

Using algorithms to generate sounds based on these essential fluids creates a union between machine and religion, suggesting that as we propel ourselves towards a future of human-machine synthesis that what emerges has an acoustic spiritual essence rooted in history, technology and capitalism.