July 19, 2005
Hi-tech fish make their own music
A ground-breaking hi-tech art project that generates music using fish and digital locators has opened its doors as BBC World Service Go Digital producer Colin Grant reports.
"An unusual exhibition invites electronically tagged fresh-water fish to conduct their very own mood music.
The exhibition called The Lake demonstrates how increasingly artists are collaborating with the makers of ground-breaking technologies to explore a brave new world of digital art.
Sixteen fish from the lake - an equal number of tench, rudd, goldfish and carp - have been volunteered for the exhibition. Under anaesthesia they are slit open and miniature bio-acoustic tags are inserted into their bodies.
The fish are then stitched up, woken up and returned to the lake where they emit a tiny acoustic signal every two seconds.
Within the lake are a number of hydrophones (underwater microphones) which pick up the emissions from the fish tags and feed that information into a laptop hidden nearby that works out the co-ordinates of each fish."
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