description | the role of the Chorus | the elements | thesmophoria | the music | the performers

the sound synthesis consists of three sound layers:

1. the background 'environmental' synthesis, based on the DNA sequences of the mutant fruitflies.

2. the male foreground synthesis based on the thermal scanning of space. Thermal outputs are transformed to skirl real-time sounds

3. the female chorus, consisting of seven women which periodically sing a synthesis based on abuses.

the mutant fruitflies

One of the most striking mutations in Drosophila is the conversion of antennae into legs by the gain-of-function dominant mutation, Antennapedia.

HOMEOTIC TRANSFORMATIONS involving the Antennapedia Complex (ANTC)
Adult fly heads: wild type, antennapedia (antennae transformed to 2nd thoracic legs) and a double mutant proboscipedia/ antennapedia (antennae to 2nd thoracic and proboscis to 1st thoracic legs).
How music is derived from the DNA sequence of the mutant fruitfly

Music Fly
The DNA of a fly (894 bases) is used as a base for the production of music. A specific algorithm will be designed for the interpretation of the DNA code. This music piece is then arranged to aesthetic preference and transformed to a new DNA sequence which becomes a representation of a new fly. This new organism might be produced in the lab or as a computer model.

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Put very simplistically, our genes tell our bodies which amino acids to put into the proteins that we make, and it is the proteins that make up the significant constituents of our bodies. Myelin Basic Protein (MBP) is an example of one such protein. In order to understand how amino acids are glued together to make proteins, we must look at the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that is present in almost all the cells in our bodies. DNA is built up of very many sub-units called neucleotides, each of which contains a chemical "base". There are only four different bases and thus only four different nucleotides. The four bases are adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). Genes are sections of DNA, in which the neucleotides are viewed in groups of three called "triplets" or "codons". Each codon "codes" for a particular amino acid. A gene is terminated by a stop code or terminator which is represented by one of three codons that do not code for amino acids. There are 20 different amino acids that are used in animals (there are others that are used in plants). There are 64 different codons and most of the 20 amino acids are coded for by more than one triplet (see table below). The process of synthesing amino acids from genes is known as transcription. During transcription, a gene is echoed from the DNA into a complementary form called ribonucleic acid (RNA). From the RNA, amino acids are produced and are joined with one another with a peptide bond. The resulting sequence of amino acids is known as peptide string or polypeptide. Proteins are derived from these polypeptides.This table shows amino acid names, three- and one-letter standard abbreviations, and linear structures.

other abbreviations:
Asx Aspartic Acid or Asparagine GAT,GAC,AAT,AAC
Glx Glutamic Acid or Glutamine GAA,GAG,CAA,CAG
Xxx or Xaa Unknown
where the derivation is uncertain or unknown

Musical expression of gene: Soundtrack: Musica Mundana Drosophila

Writing musically a fly

The attribute that the amino-acids of gene chain have, to be expressed with more from one ways, constitutes already, musically, a material of 'variants without subject'. The process of musical transcription that takes place in three stages (1. music of fly 2. hearing mutation 3. reintroduction fly of music) is not based on some system of musical notes, as usually in such cases, but in a line by territorial codes that are answered in the sound (acoustic phenomena decoded by the perception as information relative with the space that us surround as resonance, diffraction, aid/ absorption of concrete regions of spectrum, inversion of phase). In the first phase the gene of fly is persualed /readen musically. The second phase, via complex hearing and treatment, leads finally to the musical mutation of neutral ways of description of amino-acids of genetic chain. In the third phase the mutant genetic chain is musically implanted in the gene the new, musically written fly. H return of music in the fly leaves himself the fly inalterable, although genetically modified. The musical flies, though will fly with musical intervention in their gene, perhaps have rather involved , despite suffer change. (text by Vassilis Kokkas)

how music is derived from the thermal scanning of the performance space:

real time music transcription through MAX_MSP

_the music of the thyrsus is based on the song of the bird Blue Jay

_the sound wave diagram of the Blue Jay is also triangle shaped

sound sample of Blue Jay

William Blake

The Fly Little Fly,

Thy summer's play

My thoughtless hand Has brush'd away.

Am not I A fly like thee?

Or art not thou A man like me?

For I dance, And drink, and sing,

Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life And strength and breath,

And the want Of thought is death;

Then am I A happy fly,

If I live Or if I die. _____________