potato batery
living-non living and the posthuman state
Historical context of electricity
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.
Bioart: what is at stake / post-digital and post-media cultures
- Deleuzian Rhizome
- strata
- mapping
Literature overview
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
Robert Mitchell (2010). Bioart an the Vitality of Media ISBN 978-0295990088