When the term “slime mold” comes up in a non-scientific context, it’s usually meant as an insult that combines two disgusting-sounding words into one powerful put-down. But people might change their view of this organism if they learned it has a beautiful singing voice.
Artist Leslie Garcia of Tijuana, Mexico, captured the sounds of a slime mold called Physarum polycephalum, a microorganism found in temperate, tropical forests that lives on decomposed organic matter, and turned it into a synthesized song.
Garcia used an electronic musical instrument of his own design called the Energy Bending Lab. The instrument creates “a real-time sonification” of the microvoltage of the slime mold and amplifies it into a mellow, electronic symphony of sound patterns.
This slime mold can make some beautiful music. Can microorganisms also sign recording contracts?
Stephen Sharnoff/Visuals Unlimited/CorbisThe song the machine produces is a collaboration of sorts between the slime mold and the person operating the Energy Bending Lab. Garcia told Wired Magazine he hooked electrodes up to the slime mold in a petri dish and recorded the electrical activity. Then he ran that recording through a computer and used a voltage control oscillator to vary the oscillations of the audible sound so “the aesthetic is decided by us.”
Basically, the slime mold is the musician and Garcia is the producer, except he doesn’t try to steal any royalty rights away from the slime mold by secretly altering its contract or cooking the books.