Drosophila Karaoke Bar
Ursula Damm
If you could sing to flies, what would you say?
Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are a common model organism, used for over a hundred years as an important tool for research. For a creature that has given science so much, might it be time to attempt a little two-way conversation? Get ready to bust out your best version of “Don’t Stop Believing” as you approach the microphone to sing to fruit flies at the karaoke bar. Hidden beneath a wall of sand, the flies respond to your every word; translated through software into the perception range of Drosophila. Experience what they have to say to you too, as their sounds are transmitted as a visualisation.
How can we escape a human-centred worldview?
Ursula Damm is a German media artist working in the intersections of art, science and technology. Her work engages with AI systems such as machine learning, synthetic biology and neural networks. She also has an interest in swarm behaviours and bird migration. She is currently a professor of Media Environments at Bauhaus-University Weimar.