Songs of a System

A Work of Sound Art in Four Movements


In the Spring and Summer of 2021 the artist Johanna Byström Sims followed the work of a scientific research team at Queen Mary University of London as they studied the ageing immune system. She observed their experiments and analyses, and sat in on their weekly meetings. Out of this grew a sound work in four movements.


The way scientists focus on the minuscule building blocks of a human being, zooming in and out of the subject matter, with every small discovery leading to new questions is not so different from the artistic practice. During the process thoughts arose - what is it to be a human being and what does the kernel of our existence sound like? The choir “A Capriccio” directed by Anton Leanderson-Andréas has performed the sound art piece developed from this process. The human is singing the human itself.