After reading my comments from earlier today - I didn't intend to sound so critical. On the contrary, I'm fucking impressed. Halfway through the video I was thi

After reading my comments from earlier today - I didn't intend to sound so critical. On the contrary, I'm fucking impressed. Halfway through the video I was thinking to myself, damn I know UC cog/neuro PIs that would be embarrassed to share current project notes with this artist Guy Ben-Ary. I went from 'this should be amusing', to 'omg this musician is really about to demo training dissociated neural cultures to synthesize Tchaikovsky'. Even though it didn't remotely turn out that way, I probably will reach out to him (there are a few off-the-rack methods for marshalling neural activity, which may lead to more interesting outputs than stochastic crackling). Though I suspect you're absolutely right - he achieved his primary goal of creating "noise-art". ---- an aside on the modern academic musical vanguard. I recently attended an event put on by UCSD music department grads; not what I expected. I'm going in thinking - sweet, these doctoral students def were first-chair musicians in HS, classically trained since birth, playing in chamber quartets on the weekend; now they're all probably exploring their talents composing electronic and synthesized music, maybe (hopefully) some rock elements. It's gunna be great! ... The first act was essentially some kid rolling an empty Coca-Cola bottle (with a tiny microphone inside) between his foot and a slab of concrete for about 8 minutes, backed by the faint whirls and chortles of children whispering. So, just a heads-up on that front for anyone missing it. ---- edit: oh and I forgot to mention, there's something to be said about the coolness factor of jamming-out on stage with a neural network that used to be your skin cells.