My starting point was the definition from the Greek symbíōsis, meaning “living together, companionship.”

: the living together in close association of two different kinds of organisms, such as a fungus and an alga making up a lichen, especially when such an association is of benefit to both.

: a cooperative relationship (as between two persons or groups)

(“Symbiosis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/symbiosis. Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.)

At first, I thought about this in the wider sense, that all plants and animals are living on one tiny rock in space, Earth, and it is the only home we have.
So why are we knowingly destroying it with pollution, consumerism, wars, global warming, habitat destruction, to name a few ?
It seems that every week there are headlines and reports of the steady decline and extinction of plants and animals due to climate change and the human impact on the environment.

What connects plants and animals and each one of us?

We are living organisms.

An organism refers to a living thing that has an organised structure, can react to stimuli, reproduce, grow, adapt, and maintain homeostasis. An organism would, therefore, be any animal, plant, fungus, protist, bacterium, or archaeon on Earth. Organisms also have processes that they undertake to live, such as movement, growth, respiration, photosynthesis and reproduction. Many of these processes involve cells and although there are structural differences between plant and animal cells, there are similarities.

All life on Earth is made from cells.
Without cells, there can be no life.

The idea of the interconnectivity, beauty and fragility of cells and the micro similarities of all living things are the basis to this release and a larger overall project which includes artwork.
I have taken some of the major processes of living things and created audio art exploring the ideas of the deep links between humans and the planet, between all organisms, which can so easily be destroyed or become extinct.

What connects us is how important all living organisms depend on each other - symbiosis.
Like a Jenga tower, remove a brick and the tower stands but is unstable, remove another, the tower wobbles until you finally remove too many bricks and the tower falls.

We are heading in that direction but there's time to make sure that we don’t reach that final point.



1.CELLS
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all forms of life. Cells can have specified functions and carry out various tasks such as replication, DNA repair, protein synthesis, and motility.
All life on Earth is made from cells. Without cells, there can be no life. In this track, I imagined them like tiny solar systems or similar to the plankton or diatoms floating in the seas. Their tiny size belies their importance and if they are affected by pollution, disease, climate change, then life on the planet and their habitats are gravely affected, altered or destroyed.

2. GROWTH
The track starts with a recording of the tone of Calcium Phosphorus, two major elements needed for healthy bone growth and the overall sound world is one where I imagined a tiny seed developing under the soil to eventually burst through the surface towards the sun.
From tiny acorns, huge oak trees grow.

3. METABOLISM
The processes essential for life, where complex substances in the cells of living things are built up or broken down to maintain the health of the organism. In sound, it’s what lies beneath the surface, what processes create harmony out of chaos and the chemical, electrical messages and signals that are relayed.

4. NUTRITION
The processes by which an animal or plant takes in and makes use of food substances. Or in sound, gases, liquids, digestion, peristalsis, a plant taking in nutrients from the soil.

5. OSMOSIS
How cells transport or move substances through membranes. It’s how a plant transports nutrients and water up through to the leaves for photosynthesis, enabling water and oxygen to be excreted through the leaves.
As they say, the Amazon is the lungs of the world.

6. REPRODUCTION
Maintaining the species but this has a starting point with cell division, where the process of multiplying cells gets larger and faster.

7. RESPIRATION
All living things breathe. So, in this track apart from human breathing, I wanted to convey circles of connectivity between species, hence the watery sea creatures sounds. Phytoplankton photosynthesis produces about 50%of the world's oxygen and also water is vital for not only plant respiration and regulation of oxygen in the atmosphere but also animal survival.

8. DNA
Hmm mm….What connects all living things on the planet?

Cells.

How about a track that is my interpretation of what is in all cells – DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid), the genetic code that determines all the characteristics of all living things on this planet?

DNA is a molecule composed of two chains that coil around each other to form a double helix carrying genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms and many viruses. Firstly, I found a GIF on Wikimedia showing the DNA double helix in motion and so I composed this piece to roughly follow the moving image in tempo and also in a cyclical rotating soundscape. I decided to limit myself mainly to two notes for the basic tone of the piece and decided to create two long form drones in key of D and A to represent this.

The two long chains are interconnected by what looks like a ladder made up of repeating units called nucleotides. Each nucleotide contains a sugar and a phosphate molecule, which make up the ‘backbone’ of DNA. As nucleotides are the building blocks of life I have used staccato percussive sounds to represent this. There is also a strange breathing sound and a strange ticking like a clock, representing the passing of time and is rhythmic like a pendulum.

Each nucleotide is composed of one of four nitrogen-containing nucleobases (cytosine [C], guanine [G], adenine [A] or thymine [T]), a sugar called deoxyribose, and a phosphate group.

The bases are adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T) are in a specific order of A, G, C and T within a DNA molecule that is unique to you, and gives you your characteristics. Here, I added more complex patterns and sounds and also chords to represent the increasing complexity of the DNA structure and here I also added the notes G and C to the D and A notes although there’s no T note : ) With the use of randomisation and fixed patterns throughout the piece the overall effect I wanted to create was living things are all made up of DNA, so, 46 chromosomes equals a human being but a Fruit fly has only 8 but we are connected by the wonder of the genetic code.

DNA - This is a redux of a track originally created for the Edges of Dreaming radio show challenge in March 2020.and released on 2020 Vision by RadioSpiral Artists radiospiral.shop/album/2020-vision

This release is part of a much bigger exploration of the interconnectivity of living things and our planet and, as I have reimagined sound into representational audio art of cells, I have also been creating several large pen and ink drawings which represent reimagined habitats made up of cells.