GMU:DIY Biolab “Driver’s License”/Eva Walch

Bacteria interaction with painting

Goal: to combine drawings/paintings with bacteria

First try:

• Cluing the drawings on some stable underground, to prevent them from rolling when they are getting wet

• Cooking medium (source: Miga’s protocol)

Glucose – 10 g

Peptone – 2.5 g

Yeast extract – 2.5 g

Na2HPO4 – 1.35 g

Citric acid – 0.75 g

Distilled water – 500 ml

Agar – 7.5 g

• Putting the medium on the drawings

• Putting them into a box

• After 3 days:

-->Maybe the water with the nutrients was soaked into the paper

-->Maybe there is no need for the agar in the medium, because the bacteria are growing good just on the paper (see second try)

• After 2.5 weeks:

• Painting just the shape of a foot:

Second try:

• Cooking the same medium but without agar

• Just putting the medium on some paper to see what happens without agar

• After 2.5 weeks:

-->There was probably not enough liquid, so it did not really work without agar

Making different kind of media to create different kind of bacteria fields :

• I tried to to cook media with differen kind of acidity

1. on the picture in the first petri dish there is the medium for the Growth of Gluconacetobacter but without citric acid
2. in the second petri dish there is the standart medium for the growth of Gluconacetobacter, which includes some citric acid
3. the third petri dish contains the medium for the growth of Gluconacetobacter, but with the double the amound of citric acid

Further steps:

1. using thicker paper
2. making the bacteria on the paper permanent, with maybe lack
3. using different kind of media to create different kind of bacteria fields