Thibault Barillon

[The petri dishes were a] simple setup consisting of a white paper background with 2 LED panels on each side and the camera rigged to the top of the panels to keep it consistent over time so we could just use the photos as is and show the plates in their rawest form without much editing. The dishes were photographed at different points in time throughout the lifecycle.

Creatively there’s something really exciting and stimulating in limiting your own options as an artist and finding freedom within tight boundaries. The petri dishes give you a really neat boundary in a tiny plate, but also they don’t even have a layout or even an orientation, you’re almost working in one dimension.

It became a way of conceptualising what we were doing musically. For a long time we talked about ‘spores’: riffs, jams, incidental recordings, musings that we would let grow into their own songs, cross-pollinating, self-replicating and growing into different versions of the original. It became part of the language around the process.

One day I just bought some agar plates and started experimenting. I found joy in inventing my own techniques for what type of mould would grow from different organic matter I'd put on the plate a few days earlier. This started before we knew Hundred Pieces would become a thing, without grand plans or intent.

The petri dishes were an exploration of beauty in the natural world, scientific drawings and experiments that touch us emotionally without an artist's intent being behind it.

One day I just bought some agar plates and started experimenting. I found joy in inventing my own techniques for what type of mould would grow from different organic matter I'd put on the plate a few days earlier. This started before we knew Hundred Pieces would become a thing, without grand plans or intent.

The petri dishes were an exploration of beauty in the natural world, scientific drawings and experiments that touch us emotionally without an artist's intent being behind it.