Ludwig Berger
One Minute of Escaping Air
Glacier Audio Recordings, Synthetic DNA Fossils, Rock

How long can a sound survive? In this project we encode the delicate, fleeting sounds of the Morteratsch Glacier into synthetic DNA — nature’s own storage medium — and seal them in the rock at the glacier’s base, where they can endure for thousands of years.

Commissioned by SUISA, developed in cooperation with Robert Grass (Functional Materials Laboratory, ETH Zurich).

Since 2016, I have been recording the Morteratsch Glacier in the Swiss Engadine. For this project, one minute of that sound — an excerpt drawn from the Crying Glacier recordings in 2023 — is translated from binary code into synthetic DNA. Using a method co-developed by ETH Zurich researcher Robert Grass, the DNA strands, visible only as a fine powder, are encapsulated in silica glass and embedded in a borehole in the rock beside the glacier.

This storage technique, inspired by fossilization, ensures the long-term stability of the data: DNA sealed in glass can endure for thousands of years. On 23 September 2026, the capsule is sealed into the rock in a public gathering — a hike up to the glacier tongue, short talks, and a live performance by musician and philosopher David Rothenberg, who plays his clarinet in direct dialogue with the glacier, its voice picked up by hydrophones lowered into the crevasses.

A hundred years after the recording, in 2123, the DNA is to be decoded and the sound played back into the valley — however the landscape may look by the time. Once more the landscape will be filled with the sounds of creaking ice, gurgling meltwater, and bursting air bubbles: acoustic traces of a vanishing body, shaped by the climate crisis of the early 21st century. Afterwards, the capsule returns to the rock as a long-term archive, so that the place keeps its acoustic memory — a sonic fossil.

The project grew out of SUISA’s “Zukunftsmusik” initiative, curated by Johannes Rühl, which invited musicians to imagine music for an audience not yet born. Coordinates and decoding instructions are archived at the Swiss National Sound Archives.

Register for the event

Photos 1-2 by Ludwig Berger, 3-5 by Bruno Augsburger

Team:
Ludwig Berger – artist
David Rothenberg – Live performance
Anastasia Orlova (Association Planète Bleue) – production, fundraising & partnerships
Prof. Robert Grass – scientist (ETH Zurich)
Leslie Bournot – project assistance
Nicholas Schärer – Co-development

Supported by:
ETH Zurich
Atlas Data Storage, Inc.
Temperatio Stiftung
Elisabeth Weber Stiftung
SMKK-Stiftung
Stiftung Stavros S. Niarchos
SUISA