Dead for years, this composer's brain makes music with AI
21 Apr 2025

Renowned US composer Alvin Lucier, who passed away in 2021, has been "revived" by a group of Australian scientists and artists.

Using advanced neuroscience techniques, the team created a unique installation at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

The project, named Revivification, features an artificial brain that produces music in real-time.

Revivification: A fusion of art and science
Collaboration

The Revivification project is a collaboration between artists Nathan Thompson, Guy Ben-Ary, Matt Gingold, and neuroscientist Stuart Hodgetts. The team has been exploring biological art for decades.

Thompson describes the installation as a living entity, albeit not in the traditional sense.

He believes that looking into the central plinth of their work is like peering into an abyss filled with life.

Lucier's unique contribution to the project
Brainwaves

Lucier was the first artist to use brainwaves for live sound generation in his pioneering 1965 work, Music for Solo Performer.

The Revivification team started brainstorming ideas with Lucier in 2018.

In 2020, while fighting Parkinson's disease at the age of 89, the late composer agreed to donate blood for this project.

His white blood cells were reprogrammed into stem cells and converted into cerebral organoids mimicking human brain activity.

Lucier's guidance continues posthumously
Artistic collaboration

Even before his death, Lucier remained a guiding force for the Revivification team through bi-weekly Zoom meetings during the pandemic.

Despite his health issues, he communicated in whispered fragments often relayed by his assistant.

The team described their relationship with him as that of art students learning from their professor who had an extraordinary ability to focus on what he envisioned.

The installation: Merging sound and sculpture
Artwork

The Revivification installation combines sound and sculpture, with 20 giant parabolic brass plates that look like golden satellite dishes.

Each plate hides a transducer and a mallet that respond to neural signals from the mini-brain, creating an ethereal soundtrack in the space.

The team employed custom tech to grow Lucier's organoids on a fine mesh of 64 electrodes, capturing neural signals from multiple layers like a developing brain.

Ethical implications and future of revivification
Project outlook

While the Revivification project raises ethical and philosophical questions about biology, artificial intelligence, and authorship, the team prioritizes art over science in their work.

They hope that the neural data collected could aid future scientific research.

Looking ahead, Ben-Ary envisions Lucier's surrogate performer composing "new memories, new stories" indefinitely.

There are also talks of adapting this system for extreme environments or even space exploration.