Fugue installation featured at "Risk inSight"

Gordana Novakovic with the Fugue exhibit

A Fugue image

The Risk inSight project exhibition took place at the Rolex Centre in Lausanne during October . "Combining science, arts and society, the Risk inSight exhibition aims to show risks and to highlight why and how they are playing an increasingly important role in modern societies. The exhibition space is divided into four thematic sections: identifying risks, living with risks, debating risks and handling risks."

The Fugue project, which is led by UCL-CS's Artist in Residence - Gordana Novakovic, was invited to contribute to this large scale open-to-public science and art exhibition. 

Writing of the Fugue exhibit, Gordana says, "Life is full of risks, and in spite of modern medicine, around 25% of Earth’s inhabitants die from bacterial or virus infections. “Fugue” is inspired by our main defence against this fate, the immune system. At the heart of the piece is a complex piece of scientific software, an artificial immune system algorithm, which accurately mimics the cascading responses to infection of the human immune system. No two responses will ever be the same, and the time scale and outcome of the struggle is always unpredictable. However, “Fugue” does not just display what could be seen under a microscope. Instead, the artists have transformed the data generated by the artificial immune system into symbols that express the dynamics and the rhythm of the biological processes. It is entitled “Fugue” because the artists found inspiration in the resemblance between the complexities of the immune system and the complexities of the musical form fugue. While the visuals reflect one view of events in the underlying immune system when it is infected by an artificial virus, the sound reflects another, and always in a new and unpredictable way. Please watch and listen, and become attuned to the processes and rhythms that are mirroring what might be happening right now, inside your own body."