SARS coronavirus replicase sonification

The year 2020 will be remembered for one thing so obvious to all of us that naming it seems ridiculous. The Covid-19coronavirus pandemic will be a chapter in all of our life-stories. This work was created in February 2020 and premiered at alive in-person concert (harmonic. function) in Edinburgh, Scotland on 5th March [1]. It was created with the context of the developing pandemic - before we knew. It was performed in the context of cognitive dissonance – before we acknowledged. Both the host and audience – containing a large quotient of research biologists – tittered at the suggestion that anyone had not heard of the virus, though all were still out at a concert unmasked. Amid universal uncertainty, the piece was borne of, and reflecting on, that overload of political and scientific opinion. The piece is created using a sonification process of the protein sequence of the replicase polyprotein, the method by which coronaviruses replicate in host cells. This sonification process is then live-mixed alongside vocal samples by a performer to create the audio of the piece. A video demonstrating a similar viral process in a retrovirus accompanies the sound. The piece represents the time before lockdown, mirroring a state of mind of academic (dis-)interest in the unforeseen burgeoning pandemic. It was an attempt to understand what was going on. It is now an artefact of that unique time.