Mnemosyne No.3, No.4, No.5, No.6
Mnemosyne is the Greek goddess of memory and the mother of the Muses. The series consists of data sonification devices that translate the scanned forms of driftwood into sound. The four works in this exhibition deal with the memory held in driftwood collected in Thailand. Each consists of a speaker plinth fitted with a monitor, with a single piece of driftwood placed on top. The wood was charred using a process adapted from yakisugi (焼杉), a traditional Japanese method of preserving timber by burning its surface. Data from a 3D scan of the driftwood is fed into a model based on the fruit fly’s connectome, the map of connections between its neurons. The model’s output is converted into sound in Max/MSP. The monitor displays a video visualisation of activity within the network.
No.3
No.4
Mnemosyne No. 3: What the Earth Hears
2026 Charred driftwood (found in Thailand), wood, brass, monitor, speaker, single-channel
video Sound derived from the scanned form of the driftwood through a fruit fly connectome model and Max/MSP Dimensions variable; 40 x 40 x 118 cm
Mnemosyne No. 4: A Cloud That Rings
2026 Charred driftwood (found in Thailand), wood, brass, monitor, speaker, single-channel
video Sound derived from the scanned form of the driftwood through a fruit fly connectome model and Max/MSP Dimensions variable; 80 x 50 x 115 cm
The fruit fly is the first adult insect whose entire brain wiring has been mapped, with AI tracing its neural connections and human researchers checking the results. A living fruit fly learns and remembers. A map of its neural connections does not, by itself, carry those lived experiences. A map records structure, but not the time that was lived in it. Here, the network encounters the contours of a piece of wood. Its connections and the rules of conversion shape the sound that emerges.
No.5
No.6
Mnemosyne No. 5: Thunder for the Four-Legged
2026 Charred driftwood (found in Thailand), wood, brass, monitor, speaker, single-channel
video Sound derived from the scanned form of the driftwood through a fruit fly connectome model and Max/MSP Dimensions variable; 40 x 40 x 136 cm
Mnemosyne No. 6: The Fish That Never Sleeps
2026 Charred driftwood (found in Thailand), wood, brass, monitor, speaker, single-channel
video Sound derived from the scanned form of the driftwood through a fruit fly connectome model and Max/MSP Dimensions variable; 40 x 40 x 122 cm
The Mnemosyne series asks where memory resides. The marks on the wood hold no recollection, yet they bear witness to what has happened to it. An old tree, a forest or a mountain brings us before a span of time far beyond a human life. A fragment of driftwood carries something of that immensity into the room. The fruit fly gathers where fruit decays, where the passing of one life sustains another. Through the model of its brain, the wood’s worn and burnt contours become audible. Raised on a plinth and given a voice, the wood becomes the centre of a quiet rite. The sound mourns time passed. The machine reads nature; the sacred dwells in what it cannot reach. It lies in the reverence with which we attend to these remains, and to the lives and deaths that have given them their form.
