How a composer still creates music four years after his death

The idea started in 2018 when an artist team and a neuroscientist approached Lucier with an unusual proposal. Nathan Thompson, Guy Ben-Ary, Matt Gingold and Stuart Hodgets had spent years to explore the limits of biological art. As long -time admirers of Lucier's work, in particular his early research in the sound created by brain waves, they introduced themselves to a project in which his neuronal signals could be preserved and expanded into a new music form.

Lucier agreed in 2020 at the age of 89 after the Parkinson's disease was diagnosed. He donated his blood for the project and allowed the team to implement his white blood cells into stem cells, which were then developed into cerebral organoids under the scientific guidance of Hodgets.

During the Covid 19 pandemic, the team stayed in close contact with Lucier via Zoom. Despite his frailty, he forwarded the process. “We were like art students who learned from the professor,” said Thompson, as the guardian quoted. “He had this ability to cut something unnecessary and reach the core of what he had imagined.”

Ben-Ary remembered: “But it was a collaboration. We came 25 years of experience in the biological arts … for [Lucier]It was very science fiction. “