Algae Opera imagines a world where song produces Earth's food supply

It's not very often that a tagline trying to sell an opera CD reads, "you've heard the performance, now taste the song". But that's exactly what a collaboration between design collective After Agri and mezzo-soprano Louise Ashcroft is asking the public to do.

After Agri -- made up of concept artists Michiko Nitta and Michael Burton -- positions itself as exploring the "cultural revolution that will replace agriculture". It has, in the past, lobbied humans to consider the possibility of a new symbiotic relationship with algae (algaculture) where it essentially lives within our organs, making us semi-photosynthetic and self-fuelling. Now it is demonstrating a novel example of how that relationship could one day complement or, alternatively, subvert human culture as well.

Algae Opera, which debuted at London 2012 Design Festival, envisions the year 2060 -- otherwise known as the Algae Age. The green stuff is now the world's main source of food, and biotechnology opera singers are in high demand for their ability to convert breath into bitter or sweet-tasting algae according to their tone and pitch. And that's just what Ashcroft does in her opera. Wearing a biotechnology suit that transforms her into a 21st century version of the Fifth Element's blue opera singer, Ashcroft's breath is supposedly fed through transparent tubes that snake over her face and head, then across to a portable lab where CO2-hungry algae is stored in containers. An assistant (read: actor) in a white lab coat feeds the tubes into the various algae samples, which the audience can then taste afterwards.

In the future, opera singers' huge lung capacity will provide an endless source of food for the algae and, thus, for society. Song compositions will be written with this in mind, to ensure it tastes pleasant and provides people with a varied palate of flavours. The algae is becoming enriched by the song and humans, in turn, are being enriched by culture in a far more literal way than ever before.

Sounds easy (kind of), right? Not so much, according to Ashcroft. The whole experience and "non-reflexive breath cycle", as she calls it, completely challenges the founding premise of traditional operatics.

"This type of breath cycle is considered inefficient and undesirable due to the issues surrounding sustainability and aesthetic," she writes in her blog. "However, in the Algae Opera, a breath cycle based on a point of collapse is considered efficient and ultimately desirable, for it produces more algae.

"For me, the Algae Opera project has been about finding new things and re-examining old things. One of the biggest vocal challenges I have faced is considering how the opera voice, traditionally built for the size of the opera house and therefore requiring a sustained line, is re-built to the food needs of the world's population as defined by the algae mask. Due to this re-design, the musical structure and performance practice of today's operatic tradition shift and enter a future state."

The performer, then, has its position shifted, placing the end product (algae, not music) as the most important element. Opera is not a religious experience anymore; it's merely a "breath ceremony". In the Algae Age, we won't have to have men in white coats standing by to assist either -- the CO2 passing through the suit will generate algae as it flows, then be harvested once there's enough captured.

We're used to experiencing culture in a multi-sensory way, with visuals now as important as sound when it comes to performances. But the Algae Opera asks spectators and performers to take into account all the senses in the context of one piece of music.

"Our relationship to pitch, tone and vocal colour changes," writes Ashcroft. "Tone and colour in the algae framework is no longer linked just to text and texture, but also to flavour. What this means for me as a trained singer, is that I have to re-think technique, the purpose of the voice and explore a new vocal aesthetic to ensure that an algae sound creates food to feed you and me."

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Algae Opera imagines a world where song produces Earth's food supply