Celebrating the 100th birthday of the American composer John Cage, Cage Rattling #1: Kill Switch was a coming together of themes from biology, anarchistic movements and music to deliberate ideas that expand upon his legacy. The ‘Kill Switch’, a reference taken from synthetic biology whereby it is possible to engineer mechanisms leading to cells’ death, indicates a timed event of entry and exit central to Cage’s method.
C-LAB participated through an exhibit and talk on synthetic biology in particular by sharing the work Stress-o-stat which operated not only in a sonic context through its allure to a life support system but also in the use of a genetic switch - not to kill but to highlight a change of state or oxidative stress through light.
The evening began with an introduction from curator Richard Thomas (Resonance FM) and was followed by an opera before slowly merging with music from adjoining quartets and electronic music playing within a restricted set of notes (A, C, E, G) referencing the DNA sequence make-up (ATCG).
At times, the ensembles split, making their way intimately into the audience asking: "Can I play something for you? Would you hold this scoreboard?"
As if in a single flow speakers would enter and exit as part of the music giving talks on aspects of art, anarchism, economy and synthetic biology.
We had also planned to show the living synthetic biology artwork Stress-o-stat as part of the event and put considerable efforts in the legal, ethical, safety and environmental handling of placing living GMOs (Genetically Modified Organism) in the space. As part of this, a requirement was to transport the material in yellow biohazard bags. The look of these bags made the venue host frightened (in spite of prior discussions on hosting the display). We had to mount the display without the stress-lighting bacteria, an unfortunate silencing of what would have been the first legal GMO art exhibit shown in the UK, though perhaps relevant to Cage.
While Howard Boland’s talk meant to be about synthetic biology more broadly, the continuing issue of exhibiting GMO even with all the legal aspect in place coloured his talk.
The evening ended in a spellbinding musical atmosphere driven by dice-throwing randomness and a found cohesiveness between audience and performers.
Presented by The Wire magazine, a three-part series marking the 100th anniversary of John Cage's of "staged provocations designed to liberate Cagean aesthetics from the prison of the culture industry". Cage Rattling #1: Kill Switch was curated by Richard Thomas (Resonance FM) and featured performances and talks by Nils Norman, Aleks Kolkowski, C-Lab, Richard Scott, Dan Hancox, Panos Ghikas, James Butler, Murray Bookchin, Arco Ensemble, Aaron Peters, Oscillatorial Binnage.
