Publisher: Mess Books, Author: Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson, Matt Gingold, Stuart Hodgetts & Emma Pegrum, ISBN: 9780645586091, Format: Paperback, 400pp, 12.5 × 19 cm
Revivification brings together 10 essays delving into the boundaries of life, creativity and intelligence through the lens of the artwork of the same name – an attempt to immortalise the late avant-garde composer and project collaborator Alvin Lucier. The project, by artists Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson, Matt Gingold and scientist Stuart Hodgetts, situates Alvin’s lab-grown ‘mini brans’ – organoids derived from his donated blood – within an immersive sonic environment that responds to stimuli and continually composes in a closed-loop system.
Situated within debates around human agency and the impact of generative AI, Revivification invites profound reflections on the artistic, cultural, ethical and scientific terrain of the work, surveying a diverse set of perspectives surrounding in-vitro life and asking questions about mortality, creativity and agency.
Taken together, the essays and artist reflections prompt us to think closely about what it is to be human – about our various corporeal and philosophical capacities, the many modern ways in which they are under threat, and how we might think, act and create differently.