In light of the proliferation of recent water contaminations in Ireland, this project uses living organisms, Daphnia Magna, to create visualisations and sonifications in real-time. These small crustaceans are very sensitive to their environment, and are normally used in laboratory research for analysis of water and soil toxicity.

Daphnia are small, planktonic crustaceans, between 0.2 and 5 mm. Daphnia are members of the order Cladocera, and are one of several small aquatic crustaceans commonly called water fleas because of their saltatory swimming style. They live in various aquatic environments ranging from freshwater lakes to ponds, streams and rivers. Because Daphnia may be used in certain environments to test the effects of toxins on an ecosystem, this makes Daphnia an indicator species, particularly useful in that area because of its short lifespan and reproductive capabilities.

At Enterprise Ireland's Aquatic Toxicity Laboratory in Shannon, Co.Clare, Daphnia Magna are currently used to test toxicity levels in fresh water supplies in Ireland that may or may not be affected by industrial and chemical discharge.

Softday exhibited four containers with living Daphnia magna. The containers are monitored by four Apple iMac computers fitted with USB cameras capturing video via computer vision software and project real time images of the moving Daphnia. The computers also have software that convert the movement of the Daphnia to live sound and vocalisations that is flavoured by data sources from Enterprise Ireland's Aquatic Toxicity Laboratory.

For the physical installation we were inspired by the looks of the Aquatic Toxicity Lab in Shannon. We sourced lab tables, glassware and various props and configured the installation into four stations, each with its own Petri-dish with Daphnia, video camera and Apple iMac computer with our specially designed software, implemented in Pure Data (PD) with the GEM extension for computer vision and graphics.

On Saturday the 18th of April 2009, at 2pm and 3pm, Softday presented the world premiere of "Nobody leaves 'till the Daphnia sing", a live performance of a unique multimedia sound art work, as part of the INFECTIOUS exhibition at the Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin.

The computer generated music composition that the Softday Bacterial Ensemble performed was constructed utilising a variety of Daphnia data sources. This composition formed the basis for an improvisation between the human musicians and the "choral" Daphnia

Click here to watch the video

Click here to listen to the sound recording