Videos & Performances
EuroCurvoBioNet promotes cross-disciplinary encounters
and this page features examples of what can grow from curiosity, patience, and the unexpected connections that science and art make possible.
Such artistic outcomes are these kinds of impact no grant report could ever predict
and the kind we treasure most.
Composition E=mc²
E=mc² is a solo piano composition inspired by Albert Einstein’s famous equation, transforming it into a musical, symbolic, and philosophical language.
The opening motif is built from a tonal pattern derived from the physical symbols: E (energy), the double c (speed of light), and m (mass), which in the piece translates into E-flat as the third scale degree. From the initial sound of atoms — of “nothingness,” where the musical material merely suggests the spark of energy — the composition gradually gains form, mass, and strength. Various motifs portray different forms of life, evolving toward tonal, rhythmic, harmonic, melodic, and dynamic clarity. The inner expressive force builds until it reaches its culmination: a sonic embodiment of the transformation of energy into matter.
In the end, the material dissolves, returning to the intangible, where the initial theme reappears as a reminiscence — transformed through the experience of its own process, much like life itself. Ultimately, E=mc² is not only an exploration of a physical principle, but also a meditation on the life cycle: on creation, existence, and transformation that transcends the physical.
... like life itself – a flow that decays and renews within the eternal breath of the same energy ...
Lara Oprešnik
Faculty of Electrical Enginering, University of Ljubljana
Slovenia
Laboratory of Physics, Pianist and Composer
Grex - Notes from the Underground
One of the things I have always loved most is connecting science with art.
About twenty years ago, I recorded a series of videos of the slime mould Dictyostelium discoideum — tiny single-celled amoebae that, under stress and starvation, suddenly aggregate into a coordinated multicellular organism called a grex (or “slug”). Thousands of independent cells begin to communicate through chemical waves, flock together, migrate as one body, and eventually form a fruiting body that releases spores into the environment. When we added different substances into the agar, the behaviour of the cells changed slightly and the propagation of the waves could be influenced as well.
At that time, these videos were mainly scientific material for my diploma thesis and a few publications. Honestly, they then spent almost two decades forgotten in a drawer — although one of them became surprisingly quite popular on YouTube.
And today, suddenly, some of these old recordings have come alive again.
Pianist Hannah Watson Emmrich used them as the visual accompaniment for Grex, a beautiful composition by Joshua Borin, released today as part of Hannah’s debut album Notes from the Undergrowth.
Watching these old Dictyostelium recordings together with Hannah’s music was honestly a deeply emotional experience for me. I have seen these microscopy videos and wave patterns thousands of times before — but never like this. I am sure that Hana Ševčíková, my supervisor at the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, who devoted many years of her life to slime mould research, would have been deeply moved too. Sadly, she passed away far too early. And I will also make sure that Marcus Hauser, my supervisor during my Erasmus stay at the University of Magdeburg, gets to see this video as well.
Science often generates hidden beauty long before we realise it may resonate far beyond the laboratory. And this is exactly why it is wonderful that collaborations like this can also be supported through COST networks. This video collaboration was created within the framework of COST Action CA22153 – European Curvature and Biology Network (EuroCurvoBioNet).
(And by coincidence: this July, the book Understanding Marvelous Patterns in Complex Systems edited by Stefan Muller will also be published — including my chapter about Dictyostelium. But more about that another time. For now: enjoy the music and the mesmerising behaviour of slime moulds.)
Thank you, Hannah, for choosing my Dictyostelium videos for your amazing debut album Notes from the Undergrowth — a fascinating musical ecosystem of piano miniatures inspired by the forest, nature, and its strange hidden details.
Jitka
Jitka Čejková
University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Czechia
Chemical Engineering