Thursday, September 27, 2012

Headline says it all "Opera singer grows algae on her face by feeding it w/ her breath & then the audience eats it"

Wow.  I am always on the lookout for microbe-themed art.  In most cases, when I see such art, I think "wow - that is an interesting way of embedding microbes into a traditional form of art".  You know - painting with microbes or art with microbes in it or such.  Well, in this new case I can say this is the most unusual and most creative use of microbes in art I have ever seen: Opera singer grows algae on her face by feeding it with her breath and then the audience eats it

You see, an opera singer work a "head-mounted, face-clinging device" which contained within in some algae in water.  And then the algae was fed by the opera singer's breath.  This is part of something called the "Algae Opera".  The most amazing part of this is described in the io9 article
"Because the algae's growth is dependant on the amount of CO2 it receives, the singer controlled her pitch and volume to alter various characteristics of the algae, including taste (what they called "sonic enhancement"). Depending on the way she sang, the different pitches and frequencies could make the food taste either bitter or sweet"
And then at the end of the performances the audience was invited to sample some of the algae. Yum.  Certainly a bit weird.  But kudos on the creativity index.

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