Guy Ben-Ary has spent 4 years collaborating with scientists and other artists to develop a musical instrument controlled by a neural network bio-engineered from his own skin cells.

The “brain” of cellF is a biological neural network that started its life on the artist’s arm. Skin cells taken with a biopsy were converted into neural stem cells using Induced Pluripotent Stem cell technology. These neural stem cells were then fully differentiated into neural networks over a Multi-Electrode Array dish.

The neural network is now able to play live sessions with human musicians by controlling custom-built synthesizers. The music of the human performer is fed to the neurons as stimulation, and the neurons respond by controlling the analogue synthesizers. Both the human musician and Ben-Ary’s extended brain are thus fully interacting with each other to create improvised sound pieces.

Source: cellF, the world’s first neural synthesiser – We Make Money Not Art