Mikael Hwang

Codex (2024) extends themes explored in Resonance (2023) and explores how technology reveals our anthropocentric biases that shape our interactions with intelligent nonhuman entities.

Like our previous works, this project integrates biology, sound, light, and space within a pavilion. At its core is a hybrid musical instrument that translates bacterial performance into three uniquely human expressions: music, craftsmanship, and algorithmic design. While music is traditionally seen as a human endeavor, Codex (2024) questions this notion by conveying the bacteria’s performance through human-mediated sound and visuals. However, translating their activity into human artistic conventions highlights the limitations of our anthropocentric perspective.

Euclid's algorithm was applied to process the “random” bacterial data, determining the greatest common divisor between two numbers. In Codex (2024), this method was adapted to evenly space bacteria musical events, aligning microbial patterns with human auditory expectations. The resulting quantized bacterial performance was then encoded onto a custom-built metal record, forming a lasting codex.

Playing the codex requires a custom instrument resembling a record player with three-tone arms. This design symbolizes the arbitrary significance of numbers, such as 3, 8, or 16, in human music. The entire quantized bacterial performance is encoded into the codex and organized into sixteen concentric circles, each representing 1/16th of the performance. These circles contain "blank" musical events that can be filled with selected sounds via MIDI. In this way, the blank grooves of each concentric circle play continuously until the tonearm is manually moved to another circle, transforming the apparatus into an analog version of an Euclidean sequencer—a modern musical instrument capable of creating the rhythmic patterns of any human music.

The codex-instrument design echoes the data loss inherent in digitization, where converting analog to binary results in lost information. This design choice underscores the limitations imposed by human traditions, questioning our capacity to fully understand or replicate the bacteria's original intent. Through this process, viewers interact with two distinct bacterial performances: the raw signals from Resonance (2023), which defy conventional definitions of music, and the processed, humanized version, which, while easier to comprehend, distort microbial agency.