GMU:BioArt WS15/(non)living and the lemon battery

lemon battery

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living-non living and the posthuman state

In Katherine Hayles' terms, "posthuman" is a state where the human seamlessly articulate with intelligent machines and approaches his or her body as a prosthesis (Hayles, 1999). This perspective is also close to Rosi Braidotti's critical posthumanism and her awareness of being part of the Anthropocene (Braidotti, 2013). The integral operation of this system built out of carbon-based organic components and silicon-based electronic components has become one of the challenges of medicine and social theory that marks the posthuman era (Hayles, 1999, Malabou 2008 [2004], Braidotti (2013)). The fact that technologies – or to be more precise, interaction between carbon-based organic components and silicon-based electronic components – will influence our behavior even more in the future calls for the examination of information flow and control strategies within such a system. By extension, this discursive space opens up to the reconsideration of how larger information systems can be intelligent.

Historical context of electricity

Organisms could be characterized by their ability to conduct electricity which is known since the second half of XVIII century. Edmund Whittaker (1910) mentions 1780s Luigi Galvani's and his assistants' experiments which demonstrated convulsions of frog legs if attached to electric machine and which were considered as animal electricity. A slightly different approach to electricity is presented by Alessandro Volta who in 1799 builds his Voltaic Pile known as the first electrical battery (RSC 2015). Described as reaction between chemical elements the Voltaic Pile had two electrodes of different metals placed between pads of moist material.

The characterization of organisms capable of electrical conductivity in reference to reaction between nerves (organic) and metals (non organic) instead of animal electricity is brought by Johann Wilhelm Ritter (Berg 2008) after a number of experiments shortly before his death in 1810.

Electricity generated by interaction between organic and non organic elements

A media artist group from RIXC has recently been working on Biotricity (RIXC 2012), a series of workshops and an art installation where the activity of bacteria enclosed in water tanks was used as a biological battery for transforming electrical current into sound. This artwork generated interesting results from the behavior of bacteria, which in the nighttime showed less activity and during the daytime more activity. Since the activity of the bacteria were transformed into electrical signals, which, in turn, were converted into sound, the final product – a real-time sound piece – had a biological rhythm.

The most simple interaction between organic and non organic elements could be described by lemon battery (Fig. 2.), which is similar to Voltaic Pile and has two electrodes of different metals – zinc and copper – placed within one small or several normal sized lemons. In lemon battery the copper serves as the positive electrode a piece of zinc as the negative electrode. Citric acid triggers the chemical reaction between negative and positive electrodes generating a small potential difference which in turn becomes an electrical energy (Edinformatics 2015). Electrical energy could also be produced by other plants, like for example potatoes.

During the workshop on how to light up an LED using human bodies, I was discussing and demonstrating participants different techniques of getting voltage from organic elements1. All vegetables and fruits brought for the workshop were generating up to 1 V electricity through attached copper and zinc electrodes. A human body generated 2 V electric energy. During further experiments, while connecting chains of five fruits and vegetables would generate more than 4 V of electric energy and could light up an LED (Fig. 2b.). Similar experiment connecting seven people into the chain produced 2 V of electric energy, which was not enough to light up an LED.

An LED could though be lit up with one human body. An example showing such an experiment is published by Youtube user with a nickname slider2732. Here the “battery” consists of human body, a couple of capacitors, resistor, a semi conductive stone like a ferrite or pyrite and a piece of aluminum.

Bioart: what is at stake / post-digital and post-media cultures

• Deleuzian Rhizome
• strata
• mapping

Literature overview

https://www.uni-weimar.de/medien/wiki/GMU:BioArt#Books

Historical context

Robert Mitchell (2010). Board and the Vitality of Media. (the concept of “media life”, link between objective and subjective as a change in technology and social relations; bioart introduced as “problematic”, a deleuzian rhizome connecting bodies, institutions and ideas; “post-medium condition”)

Three Eras:

• Sciences of Heredity / Plant breeding and vis-a-vis market: Edward Steichen, Delphiniums 1936
• dna (braking in 70s first) and the innovations of life: Joe Davis, Microvenus 1986 (coding) and Eduardo Kac, Genesis 1999 (translation and communication)
• bioart and bioterrorism: Steve Kurtz, FBI and mail fraud case in 2004-2008

Projects

• Marta de Menezes. Nature? (1998) (genetically modified butterflies with different wings)
• Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr. Disembodied Cousine (2001-2) (tissue culture/steak from from muscle cells around a biopolymer template)
• Steve Kurtz
• davidcremers. Gastrulation (1998)
• Natalie Jeremijenko. One Tree (1998-present)
• Eduardo Kac
• Critical art ensemble. Free Range Grains

References

• Berg, H. (2008). Johann Wilhelm Ritter – The Founder of Scientific Electrochemistry in Review of Polarography, Vol.54, No.2. Available at: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/revpolarography/54/2/54_2_99/_pdf Accessed: 1 August 2015.
• Dubiel, H. (2009 [2006]). Deep in the Brain. New York: Europa Editions.
• Edinformatics (2015). How does a battery work. Available at: http://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/how_does_a_battery_work.htm (Accessed 3 August 2015).
• Mindaugas Gapševičius (2015). “Do-it-yourself” series workshop “How To Light Up LED With Your Body” with artist Mindaugas Gapševičius. Available at: http://www.letmekoo.lt/en/pasidaryk-pats-dirbtuves-kaip-iziebti-led-savo-kunu-su-menininku-mindaugu-gapseviciumi/ (Accessed 11 August 2015).
• Hayles, N. K. (1999). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Robert Mitchell (2010). Bioart an the Vitality of Media ISBN 978-0295990088
• Whittaker, E. T. (1910). A history of the theories of aether and electricity. Vol 1, Nelson, London. Available at: https://archive.org/download/historyoftheorie00whitrich/historyoftheorie00whitrich_bw.pdf (Accessed: 1 August 2015).