Organic Pulse Imagery is an installation art that unites the audience with parts of the different organisms. In this project, I will capture the electrical conductivity of the organisms for conveying the massage that there are many microorganisms everywhere around us. Then, I will send that input to Max/msp to generate a 3D/2D graphic of their electrical conductivity and project that graphic onto the wall, therefore the audiences can be participated.
This idea is more likely to be an exhibition approach, which people can choose the organisms by themselves and interact with it.
The installation includes a counter which has a projector built-in, on top of the counter is a petri dishes slots that allow the participants to choose the organisms that they're interested to interact with and place it in the isolated slot which is connected to the Arduino, moreover the slots are used as an incubator for the organisms to keep them living with the suitable temperature.
This project is related to my Max/msp project here. Link to my Max/msp Project
Capturing the electric potentials and generate the visual
To capture the electric potentials from the organism, I have to create a split petri dish with a small bridge between each slot to allow the electricity form the organism to flow, moreover, this approach will capture the electricity only from the organism, not the medium.
The selected organism is Physarum Polycephalum. It was cultivated on the aforementioned split petri dish. After many attempts, I found out that the most important issue is the timing, the slime mold needs around two days to cross the bridge, after than that it will remain on its side, in contrast, earlier than that it does't cross the bridge.
For capturing the electricity, I use the capacitive sensor method.
Arduino sketch : File:sensor_reading.ino
At the beginning, I captured the electricity form my hands for observing a number to make a differentiation between the electric potentials from human being and microorganism.
Then, I connected the wires to the organism.
The captured number from my hands is around 6000 - 7500, from the Physarum Polycephalum is around 10 - 21 and more stable.
Because of the significant contrast between each organism, it can be discriminated to generate the different visual. In this case, I experimented with two organism, human and Physarum.
The generated visual from Physarum's electric potential.
The generated visual from Human's electric potential.
As the images above, the density of the shapes depends on the serial read number.
Further Experiment
The Setting
Here is the sketch of my ideal setting.
The electrical conductivity data from the chosen organisms is going to be generated with Max/msp into a visual, then that visual will be projected onto the wall.
Further research
References
- Martin Howse, Radio Mycelium https://www.uni-weimar.de/kunst-und-gestaltung/wiki/images/Martin-howse.pdf
- Four Conditions for Bacterial Growth https://www.livestrong.com/article/126073-four-conditions-bacterial-growth
- How Can Bacteria Help Us? https://learning-center.homesciencetools.com/article/bacteria-experiment-guide