Created in collaboration with composer Páll Ragnar Pálsson, a self playing piano performs alongside a video projection moving through a landscape of microscopic JCVI-Syn3.0 cells. These so called ‘Minimal Cells’ contain the least amount of genes to possibly sustain life. By their creator John Craig Venter, they are referred to as the first complete human-made life and the ‘beginning of digital biology’. Pálsson composed a piece of music for piano, soprano and violin inspired by video footage of these cells as well as a poem, ‘Sterne im März’ by Ingeborg Bachmann. Performed for the exhibition opening with live musicians, the piano then remembers and repeats the piece alongside the projection.

With kind support of Kunstverein Heilbronn and Stefan Diller for scanning electron microscopy (SEM)

Páll Ragnar Pálsson & Andreas Greiner, Kunstverein Heilbronn 2018