As a molecular biologist, talking to the public about my work with DNA has often felt like trying to translate a foreign language. This got me thinking: could these scientific ideas be presented in an artistic way, to help people engage with them?
The intersection of science and art is important for a few reasons.
It’s not just about how art as a medium can help advance science – it’s also about using science to inspire new artistic creations. Indeed, ecological art is a burgeoning art movement that’s transforming the way we view and interact with nature.
For me, the collision between molecular biology and art took me to a surprising endpoint: composing music through the editing of DNA sequences.
In a soon-to-be-published paper, I detail my method of using digital DNA sequencing to compose music. Rather than having biotech or medical applications, I did this solely for the purpose of scientific outreach.
I’ll be the first to admit this approach seems a little strange. But I hope it can inspire young people to consider careers in which the arts and the sciences converge.
I developed six “sonification algorithms” to process sequences into distinct audio notes. By listening to the resulting audio outputs, I was able to identify patterns, mutations, and tell apart RNA molecules that code for proteins from those that don’t.
The early outputs were minimal and robotic, prioritising data analysis over artistic expression.
But people began to see musical qualities in the audio. This prompted me to make the audio more harmonious, by mapping DNA sequences to different harmonic intervals. While I didn’t change the sequences, this mapping made the resulting audio sound more “musical”.
I also published a web tool (see the video below) that shows the sonification of the DNA sequences.
I made deliberate aesthetic choices, such as mapping DNA motifs to major or minor musical scales.
I recently modified the code of the web tool to generate digital music files from the sonified data. I can now use music software to manipulate these files, such as by assigning instruments, or changing the tempo.
In the context of outreach, the next step was to introduce musicians to this DNA-generated audio. My aim was for myself and the musicians to use this audio to create music that simply sounded good, rather than having a scientific function.
[Note - this isn't purely DNA output. This is Mark on drums and a couple of musician mates of his playing along to the synth output of DNA.]
One approach I took to edit the sequences was to repeat a phrase many times, with each repeat having a new mutation (subtle change), so the sound slowly evolves over time.
I have also been using specific units of genetic code, called “codons”, to start (ATG) and stop (TGA) sequences and create new musical sections. It was important to highlight these units of code since they play important roles in gene expression.
I played some of this music through a custom modular synthesizer earlier this month at the International Conference on Auditory Displays.
This setup allowed for real-time experimentation with the track, making an interesting collision between the worlds of molecular biology and performance art.
Logical scientific approaches can complement artistic ones, and I hope this will inspire more people towards the fusion of STEM and art, or “STEAM”.
The intersection of these two domains is a fascinating place to be, and one where human interaction with data helps tie everything together.
I will be performing more of my musical compositions in Sydney on August 12, at an event called Synthetic Compositions – Music made from artificial DNA sequences, as part of National Science Week.
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[Article] [Archive]
Author: Mark Temple - Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology, Western Sydney University
Disclosure statement: I am on the organising committee for Inspiring NSW and an advocate for National Science Week. Synthetic Compositions – Music made from artificial DNA sequences is an Inspiring Australia NSW event and is supported by the Australian government as part of National Science Week. The event is also sponsored by Western Sydney University's School of Science and The SEED Lab (School of Humanities and Communication Arts).
Partners: University of Western Sydney
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The article caught my interest and it turns out he's already published a paper on the 'sound' of SARS-CoV-2, back in 2020. As for this "soon to be published paper", no clue, his ORCID page doesn't list any new papers so I'd give it a couple weeks even though the conference he referenced was at the start of the month.
The source code for his Covid sonification project looks to have been adapted for this recent project with improvements like downloading the midi output.
Reading through the paper, it doesn't seem like you can just drop in a FASTA file and get a midi out of it immediately, there was quite a bit of tweaking done just for the Covid sequence to sound 'good enough'.
The intersection of science and art is important for a few reasons.
It’s not just about how art as a medium can help advance science – it’s also about using science to inspire new artistic creations. Indeed, ecological art is a burgeoning art movement that’s transforming the way we view and interact with nature.
For me, the collision between molecular biology and art took me to a surprising endpoint: composing music through the editing of DNA sequences.
In a soon-to-be-published paper, I detail my method of using digital DNA sequencing to compose music. Rather than having biotech or medical applications, I did this solely for the purpose of scientific outreach.
I’ll be the first to admit this approach seems a little strange. But I hope it can inspire young people to consider careers in which the arts and the sciences converge.
DNA sonification for public engagement
My journey began innocently enough with the use of audio for data analyses. I would convert DNA sequences into audio – a process of “sonification”, turning data into sound – by assigning base and base combinations along the sequence to corresponding musical notes.I developed six “sonification algorithms” to process sequences into distinct audio notes. By listening to the resulting audio outputs, I was able to identify patterns, mutations, and tell apart RNA molecules that code for proteins from those that don’t.
The early outputs were minimal and robotic, prioritising data analysis over artistic expression.
But people began to see musical qualities in the audio. This prompted me to make the audio more harmonious, by mapping DNA sequences to different harmonic intervals. While I didn’t change the sequences, this mapping made the resulting audio sound more “musical”.
I also published a web tool (see the video below) that shows the sonification of the DNA sequences.
I made deliberate aesthetic choices, such as mapping DNA motifs to major or minor musical scales.
I recently modified the code of the web tool to generate digital music files from the sonified data. I can now use music software to manipulate these files, such as by assigning instruments, or changing the tempo.
In the context of outreach, the next step was to introduce musicians to this DNA-generated audio. My aim was for myself and the musicians to use this audio to create music that simply sounded good, rather than having a scientific function.
[Note - this isn't purely DNA output. This is Mark on drums and a couple of musician mates of his playing along to the synth output of DNA.]
Freestyling on the big stage
Earlier this year I began writing DNA sequences from scratch to compose my own music, with choruses, bridges, codas, and anything else my limited musical knowledge will allow.One approach I took to edit the sequences was to repeat a phrase many times, with each repeat having a new mutation (subtle change), so the sound slowly evolves over time.
I have also been using specific units of genetic code, called “codons”, to start (ATG) and stop (TGA) sequences and create new musical sections. It was important to highlight these units of code since they play important roles in gene expression.
I played some of this music through a custom modular synthesizer earlier this month at the International Conference on Auditory Displays.
This setup allowed for real-time experimentation with the track, making an interesting collision between the worlds of molecular biology and performance art.
Releasing STEAM
My journey with DNA sonification illustrates how music and art can be powerful tools to communicate scientific concepts to a wide audience. It also underscores that creativity is alive and well in the sciences.Logical scientific approaches can complement artistic ones, and I hope this will inspire more people towards the fusion of STEM and art, or “STEAM”.
The intersection of these two domains is a fascinating place to be, and one where human interaction with data helps tie everything together.
I will be performing more of my musical compositions in Sydney on August 12, at an event called Synthetic Compositions – Music made from artificial DNA sequences, as part of National Science Week.
-----
[Article] [Archive]
Author: Mark Temple - Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology, Western Sydney University
Disclosure statement: I am on the organising committee for Inspiring NSW and an advocate for National Science Week. Synthetic Compositions – Music made from artificial DNA sequences is an Inspiring Australia NSW event and is supported by the Australian government as part of National Science Week. The event is also sponsored by Western Sydney University's School of Science and The SEED Lab (School of Humanities and Communication Arts).
Partners: University of Western Sydney
-----
The article caught my interest and it turns out he's already published a paper on the 'sound' of SARS-CoV-2, back in 2020. As for this "soon to be published paper", no clue, his ORCID page doesn't list any new papers so I'd give it a couple weeks even though the conference he referenced was at the start of the month.
The source code for his Covid sonification project looks to have been adapted for this recent project with improvements like downloading the midi output.
Reading through the paper, it doesn't seem like you can just drop in a FASTA file and get a midi out of it immediately, there was quite a bit of tweaking done just for the Covid sequence to sound 'good enough'.
Metadata specific to the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 sequence was used to supplement the audio generated from the intrinsic characteristics of the RNA sequence. Audio from un-translated sequences between the open reading frames were mapped to an audio stream at a reduced tempo so that they were more clearly distinguished from the coding regions. Additionally, the viral genome is known to contain 10 transcriptional regulatory sequences (TRS) and five known stem loop (SL) structures known to play a role in the function of the genome [32] and their occurrence was sonified. These conserved motifs were sonified and since they often occurred in the untranslated regions the audio from these two were panned in stereo.
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