"Algae Opera" Nourishes Algae with a Singer's Breath

Are you blessed with a Maria Callas kind of voice? If, like us, you don't go beyond croaking the occasional " I want to break free" in the shower, watch out. If the artists of Algae Opera have their way, your morning algae might not taste so sweet.

Algae Opera debuted at the London 2012 Design Festival as part of Isoculture, a project that redesigns the city as a self-sustaining system. The structure, created by After Agri, channels the flow of CO2 produced by the powerful lungs of an opera singer's breath into plastic tubes that feed what may soon become a fundamental source of nutrition: algae. But that's not all there is to this synesthetic experience. The song and modulation of the singer's voice, in connection with new techniques of sonic enhancement, influence the perception of the eating experience, shifting the taste of algae to either bitter or sweet.

Algae opera is a project that reframes art as a functional actor in future society, recontextualizing opera from a pleasing aesthetic experience to a functional tool to grow food. The project shows how society's sensibilities can be reframed through technology and creativity, in order to deal with the challenges we'll face as inhabitants of an overpopulated planet. So lie back and relax: dinner will be ready around the third act.

Story via Wired. Image via Laughing Squid.