Mike Thompson & Susana Cámara LeretArtist in residence
Mike Thompson and Susana Cámara Leret are Amsterdam-based artists and artist in residence at Waag.
During their fellowship they developed The Rythm of Life. This project was produced with media artist Dave Young, in collaboration with scientists from the Netherlands Metabolomics Centre at Leiden University, and TNO Quality of Life.
Mike Thompson
Mike Thompson thinks of design as a tool for challenging and reframing society's preconceptions. Generating valuable scenarios and concepts, his work questions society's common codes of conduct, providing us with new tools for possible futures. In doing so his work has reflected upon themes such as sustainability, biotechnology, health care and psychology.
Susana Cámara Leret
Susana Cámara Leret (Madrid, 1982) currently lives and works from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her work explores the boundaries between technology and human experience, through an experimental and transdisciplinary practise. The narratives she creates span across different media, oscillating at the intersections between art, design, science, fiction and reality, to confront scientific truth with the anecdotal or absurd. Her interests lie in cross-species exchanges, in an on-going search for alternate ways of living, materialised in the form of speculative products, systems or services. These explorations often entail multidisciplinary collaborations with experts from the life to the computer sciences, alongside institutes such as the Netherland's Metabolomics Centre or Waag.
The Rythm of Life
“Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.” (Elvis Presley).
What if we were able to listen in on the electro-chemical messages sent by our bodies?
Biophotons, or light emitted during biological processes, is used in cell to cell communication in plants, bacteria and animals. Invisible to the naked eye, these particles of light belong to the electromagnetic spectrum and are detectable with instruments such as a Photomultiplier Tube. In recent studies, scientists from the Netherlands Metabolomics Centre (NMC) monitored the emission of photons from the body using this technology. Placing both hands into the machine, participants are recorded hundreds of times per second over a five minute time period, revealing the constant photon emissions and fluctuations of the human body – the so-called Rhythm of Life.
Translating these light frequencies into sound, the Rhythm of Life transforms the human body into a synthesiser, allowing participants to experience for the first time the invisible patterns unique to each individual. Open to all, such an experience brings to question, how might people react when offered the opportunity to experience their body in a new light, in exchange for donating their personal data to science?