How will nerve cell activity in a Petri dish change when it is given an audience? This is just one of the questions posed by Phil Gamblen and Guy Ben-Ary, residents at SymbioticA, an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences based at The University of Western Australia.

Their work entitled Silent Barrage, which involves 32 sculptural robotic objects connected to brain cells, has recently received an Honorary Mention in the Hybrid art category at the Prix Ars Electronica.

The awards were established in Austria in 1987 and acknowledge interdisciplinary projects at the interface of art, technology and society.   They are regarded as the pinnacle of cyberarts attracting over 40,000 entries since their inception and offering the largest cash prize for cyberarts worldwide.

Silent Barrage is a collaboration between Phil Gamblen and Guy Ben-Ary, and Steve Potter’s Laboratory for Neuro-engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. 

Silent Barrage has been described as providing an immersive and somewhat overwhelming sensorial manifestation of questions that are in the core of our understanding of the stuff that make us think.

The audience walks through a space where the robotic objects are placed.  The way the audience moves and interacts with the objects influences the way the cells in the Petri dishes react.  This is then translated into sound for a total sensory experience.

Silent Barrage received development funds from  the DCA in June 2008  through the Arts Development Panel.

SymbioticA receive multi-year funding from the DCA.

For more information:

http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/silentbarrage
http://www.aec.at/prix_about_en.php