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Physarum-Based Memristors for Computer Music

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Advances in Physarum Machines

Part of the book series: Emergence, Complexity and Computation ((ECC,volume 21))

Abstract

We present results into harnessing the memristive characteristics of Physarum polycephalum for computer music. Memristors are the recently discovered fourth fundamental passive circuit element that relates magnetic flux linkage and charge. Unlike the three established fundamental circuit elements, namely the capacitor, inductor, and resistor, the memristor is non-linear. The plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is an amorphous unicellular organism that has been discovered to exhibit memristive qualities. We confirm findings that the protoplasmic tube of Physarum polycephalum exhibits memristive properties. We conduct a study that investigates how the memristive qualities of the organism may be used to generate musical responses to seed material. Following on, we briefly present an artefact of our research that takes the form of a piece of music composed for live performance. In the final section, we discuss our future work. Here we offer an insight as to how we plan on expanding the usability of Physarum-based memristors by stabilising the component and overcoming some of the constraints we present within this text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR), Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

    Edward Braund, Raymond Sparrow & Eduardo Miranda

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  1. Edward Braund
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  2. Raymond Sparrow
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  3. Eduardo Miranda
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Correspondence to Edward Braund .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Andrew Adamatzky

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Braund, E., Sparrow, R., Miranda, E. (2016). Physarum-Based Memristors for Computer Music. In: Adamatzky, A. (eds) Advances in Physarum Machines. Emergence, Complexity and Computation, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26662-6_34

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26662-6_34

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26661-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26662-6

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