Lisa Moren

DNA

The Well-Tempered Dinoflagellate

Luciferous DNA

by Lisa Moren with Dr. Tsvetan Bachvaroff

“The Well Tempered Dinoflagellate: Luciferous DNA” A 6-hour mp3 file, player and speaker, and a 78-page music composition transposed from the DNA responsible for bioluminescence in the dinoflagellate [pyrocystis]. An intervention installed in front of Charles Peale’s “The Long Room” [ 1822 ] an front room at the Peale Museum, 2024.

 

Dr. Tsvetan Bachvaroff [Tsetso] is a DNA sequencer committed to sequencing the Chesapeake Bay because, as he says, “you can’t solve Bay problems if you don’t know what’s in it.” In this project, Tsetso contributed the DNA of the dinoflagellate [pyrosistis] algae specifically responsible for bioluminescence. The ten-page Word file of “agct” patterns was transposed into a music file [midi] via an open-source algorithm.

A 78-page music score was created from this process and an over-six-hour mp3 file.

 
 

“The Well-Tempered Dinoflagellate: Luciferous DNA”, by Moren-Bachvaroff, designed with Guenet Abraham. A 78-page score in a book form is available on Amazon, and a pdf is freely available here, 2022.

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[ 4 minute excerpt of 6:40 hours ]

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“What is the Shape of Water?”, Moren-Bachvaroff, 2020.

 

When the installation “What is the Shape of Water?” had no audience interaction, the public instead heard “The Well-Tempered Dinoflagellate.” The dinoflagellates also heard the chanting DNA music played in the tank, triggering the listening apparatus. This allowed the dinoflagellates to bioluminesce according to their own DNA.