Revivification
A posthumous installation that immortalises Alvin Lucier via biological agency - living brain organoids grown from his donated cells become his surrogate performer, an entity that keeps creating long after his death.
Music for Surrogate Performer
A posthumous performance where Alvin Lucier's living neural networks play his own 1965 composition after his death.
Revivification: The Book
Brings together 10 essays delving into the boundaries of life, creativity and intelligence through the lens of the artwork of the same name.
Bricolage
A performative installation of human heart muscle cells beating over silk scaffolds, self-assembling and twitching in real time.
cellF
The world's first biological neuron-driven synthesizer. A neural network grown from the artist's own skin cells plays improvised music live with human musicians.
In Vitro Intelligence & Surrogate Performers
Two interrelated concepts describing living neural networks that function as creative agents outside the body.
Snowflake
Probing the ethical implications of manipulating brain plasticity, memory, and identity through biotechnology.
In-Potentia
A speculative work that challenges Western culture's fetishisation of consciousness as the measure of personhood and life.
Silent Barrage
An architectural installation where pole robots manifest cultured nerve cell activity, while audience movement feeds back into the living culture.
The Living Screen
A living cinematic apparatus that projects nano-scale films onto screens grown from living tissue, contorting the image as the biological canvas transforms, reacts, and eventually dies.
MEART
A bio-cybernetic research and development project exploring aspects of creativity and artistry in the age of new biological technologies.
Performance Documentation
cellF — Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica, Linz
Performance Documentation
cellF — HKW Berlin
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Performance Documentation
cellF — MONA / MOFO
Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart
Interview
Art and Science Collaborations Bring a Human Perspective
The Weekend Australian
Performance Documentation
cellF — World Premiere, Masonic Hall
Perth, Western Australia
Exhibition Documentation
Silent Barrage — Science Gallery Dublin
Science Gallery, Dublin
About
Guy Ben-Ary is a Perth-based artist and researcher working at SymbioticA, an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and hands-on engagement with the life sciences at the University of Western Australia.
Recognised internationally as a major artist and innovator working across science and media arts, Guy specialises in biotechnological artwork that aims to enrich our understanding of what it means to be alive. His main research areas are cybernetics, soft-robotics and the cultural articulation of bio-technologies.
His work has been shown across the globe at prestigious venues from the Beijing National Art Museum to the São Paulo Biennale to the Moscow Biennale, and is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His works cellF and Silent Barrage were each awarded an Honorary Mention in Prix Ars Electronica (2017, 2009). Silent Barrage also won first prize at VIDA, a significant international competition for Art and Artificial Life.
Selected Exhibitions