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Physarum Inspired Audio: From Oscillatory Sonification to Memristor Music

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Abstract

Slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a single-celled amoeboid organism known to possess features of a membrane-bound reaction–diffusion medium with memristive properties. Studies of oscillatory and memristive dynamics of the organism suggest a role for behaviour interpretation via sonification and, potentially, musical composition. Using a simple particle model, we initially explore how sonification of oscillatory dynamics can allow the audio representation of the different behavioural patterns of Physarum. Physarum shows memristive properties. At a higher level, we undertook a study of the use of a memristor network for music generation, making use of the memristor ’s memory to go beyond the Markov hypothesis. Seed transition matrices are created and populated using memristor equations, and which are shown to generate musical melodies and change in style over time as a result of feedback into the transition matrix. The spiking properties of simple memristor networks are demonstrated and discussed with reference to applications of music making.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Technically, the memristor’s memory is dependent on its entire history from \( - \infty \) to now; in practice, it is possible to ‘zero’ a memristor’s memory.

  2. 2.

    As energy cannot be created or destroyed, a change in voltage should change the voltage drop across the rest of the network instantaneously. Whether this change is actually instantaneous or proceeds at the speed of light is a question for relativity physicists.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by EPSRC grant EP/H01438/1 and the EU research project ‘Physarum Chip: Growing Computers from Slime Mould’ (FP7 ICT Ref 316366).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 12a Priory Road, Bristol, BS8 1TU, UK

    Ella Gale

  2. Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK

    Oliver Matthews, Jeff Jones, Richard Mayne & Andrew Adamatzky

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece

    Georgios Sirakoulis

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  1. Ella Gale
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  2. Oliver Matthews
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  6. Andrew Adamatzky
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Correspondence to Andrew Adamatzky .

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  1. University of Plymouth, Plymouth, United Kingdom

    Eduardo Reck Miranda

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Gale, E., Matthews, O., Jones, J., Mayne, R., Sirakoulis, G., Adamatzky, A. (2017). Physarum Inspired Audio: From Oscillatory Sonification to Memristor Music. In: Miranda, E. (eds) Guide to Unconventional Computing for Music. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49881-2_7

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