biopunk text soft launch

Here is a free, readable online version of a biopunk book I recently self-published to accompany my current exhibition. Enjoy!

Mangling Methodologies in biological art and display practices (moderated by Dr Tagny Duff)

It was my great honour to sit alongside Dr Andrew Pelling, Jens Hauser, Tristan Matheson and Dr Tagny Duff as a panelist for the panel session entitled, Mangling Methodologies in biological art and display practices (organized by Tagny Duff). This panel took place this past Thursday, just before the opening reception for my thesis exhibition, Biomateria + Contagious Matters, as part of the RE-CREATE: Theories, Methods and Practices of Research-Creation in the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, Media Art Histories International Conference. It was a packed house! Thanks to everyone who came to listen and ask questions. A video recording of the panel should be made available soon. For now, here are the text and images I presented in a seven-minute presentation (click to enlarge the images).

BODILY ENGAGEMENT

Textile and other craft-making practices assume and privilege a direct bodily engagement with materials. These hands-on making methodologies require dexterity, haptic understanding, a textural interpretation—in essence, a material fluency developed through corporeal translation. I’ve dubbed this process, “haptic epistemology”, or the method of generating knowledge through touch or membranous contact with forms.

This forms a core principle of my working craft methodology. However, it’s one I’ve had to rework and adapt in negotiating the intersection of textile and biological craft. The same practices and rule sets cannot necessarily apply across disciplines but some bridging has happened and I’ll address that in a minute.

Some textile-based haptic methods I’ve abandoned out of necessity include:

·      using my mouth and teeth as an extra hand for holding, pulling or cutting string;

·      using my saliva to smooth the fuzzy end of a thread before threading it through a needle, or to spin yarn;

·      using my fingernails as tweezers;

·      holding my work close to my face to see the tiny details, holding it directly in my hand to feel its texture and assess its form;

Engaging in these tricks, shortcuts and assessment methods in producing textile objects would literally destroy laboratory-based microorganisms—this is of course due to the bacteria and fungi ever-present on my hands, my breath, my hair, every part of me. So, there are new rules to follow, new barriers to accept, new protocols to adopt and invent, in order to grow live tissue on a textile.

ADOPTED METHODS 

ASEPSIS AND BARRIERS

Working with tissue culture, coaxing a ‘life’ form to re-form itself into a sculptural object on a predetermined woven scaffold, requires self-containment, asepsis and the institution of various levels of barrier. Biocraft methodology—and I say “biocraft” when referring to tissue engineering because it IS a craft process, in the production of a functioning form—requires preventing direct skin contact with any of your materials or tools. Some materials are toxic to humans, but usually it's humans who are the mortal threat to vulnerable cell cultures.

The imposition of a handcraft process on an aseptic environment, attempting to mesh direct engagement of the body with an elaborate system of establishing bodily barriers, is challenging to the act of making.

If weaving is meticulous, weaving in the miniature under a flow hood, wearing gloves and misting everything with ethanol, is painstaking, and hazardous: precision is lost, your endurance is challenged and touch becomes a very complicating factor. The haptic epistemological methodology can be the process of destruction, erasure, and cell death—and for the artist, it could mean the epic failure of a months-long project.

FAILURE AND FUTILITY

Failure and futility are inherent principles in life science methodologies, principles that the practitioner must come to terms with. The majority of experiments will fail. This is especially true in bioart where nonspecialists apply protocols of tissue engineering, with very little initial understanding of what they’re doing. Artists with product-oriented agendas will be disappointed. One may argue that failure is also an inherent principle in art-making but it is all the more poignant when working with “living” or semi-living materials—these are organisms dependent on the researcher for life support. 

Negotiating, accepting and even embracing failure, is a key component of adopting scientific research as an art-making practice. This implies accepting a lack of control.

BUREAUCRACY AND BARRIERS

Elaborate controls are put into place to regulate the use of biological materials. The perception of disembodied bodily materials, such as human cells, are that of contagion regardless of whether or not anything is actually contagious. You can’t catch cancer. You can’t infect yourself with mouse tissue. These are the materials that I’ve worked with and that I’ve had to complete numerous certifications in order to handle, transport and display. These bureaucratic barriers may or may not be entirely necessary all the time—however, one currently must embrace and work within these rule sets in the adoption of bioart practice.

INVENTED METHODS  

WET WEAVING

I want to switch now to elaborate on my invented method for producing biotextiles, one that respects laboratory rules and switches the focus of haptic epistemology from my process to that of the microorganisms themselves.

Textile scaffold production happens through a process I call “wet weaving”. In wet weaving, textile materials are stored in fluid and manipulated while soaked. Fibres are immersed in ethanol for a period of hours or days in order to induce and maintain sterility. Throughout the weaving process, the weaving materials are kept wet with ethanol, and later rinsed with phosphate buffer solution to prepare them for in vitro use. The entire life span of the textile is within a wet ecology, including its later immersion in cell culture media as an engineered scaffold for the cells, to its eventual ‘fixing’ in paraformaldehyde once the experiment has concluded and the biotextile must be preserved.

In the wet ecology of my textile scaffolds, it’s the cells themselves who perform the haptic epistemological process. The resourcefulness of these non-neuronal (supposedly non-thinking) cells is displayed in how they anchor themselves at fibre axes, at the intersection of threads, extend towards each other, communicate through touch and collectively build multicellular bridges within the woven structure. As the bridges widen, the grid becomes the skeleton for new tissue formation. 

NEW PROTOCOLS

I want to end with this image, which is an emergent development of new mingled protocols and performance, in the disrupted gallery display and art administrative methods—here, staff have adapted, embraced and upheld a new set of rules, specifically for this display of biological art across the hall. I want to state that I consider this as much the work as the work on display.

sonya/ osanna start to materialize

The girls are coming along. These are the first two samples/ attempts at creating weave structures that make use of a 6-colour CMYK warp on the Jacquard loom. I've been designing for weeks to refine the structures so that the majority of the image appears to be black & white, except for the girls' dresses (Materiality, anyone? Again, I'm thinking in meta).
In fact, nothing is black & white at all, but colour is often perceived in relation to what is next to it--colour IS relative to an extent, and Jacquard weaving makes use of the human eye to blend the pixels/threads of an image in the mind to produce a whole image-based cloth - similar to the way single cells come together to produce a whole piece of tissue. Both are materialized on matrices. I'm playing with the relationship between the French words 'tissu' (cloth/ tissue) and 'tissage' (weaving) in my methodology. Next week, I'll be working on the third sample cloth, which I hope will get this image closer to the end result I'm looking for. Once I've accomplished that, I'll move back to doing a double-sided image-based cloth, with osteosarcoma micrographs on the back side of the cloth - so, girls on one side, microscopic imagery of them on the other. Remember, Sonya and Osanna below represent the two young ladies whom bone cancer cells were taken from for lab use, back in the 60s and 70s (the original photo I'm working from was taken in 1964). These girls are tall. Osteosarcoma occurs most often in pre- and pubescent girls who go through a rapid growth spurt, becoming very long-legged very quickly, leading to mutation in the bone cells of the shins (typically). The osteosarcomas I'm working with came from two pubescent girls' shin bones. I very much enjoy the appearance of glitch in the first sample on the right, in terms of glitch = mutation.

Metamaterial (detail). Jacquard woven fabric of an image of 3T3 cells forming tissue on a handwoven scaffold. 2015.

e-zombie craft - incubator build part 1

I've completed the first step in the electronics setup for my incubator, which I'm building after the DIY model developed by Andrew Pelling (Pelling Lab) while he was researcher-in-residence at SymbioticA. You can see his setup and excellent instructions here for the entire incubator build.

The first part of the electronics build is the fan, which will circulate air inside the incubator and distribute CO2 and heat, which cells need to stay alive. Andrew Pelling's clear instructions for that build (with very helpful photos) are here and here. My experiment and comments (including additions to his instructions) are below.

Parts:
Inside PC towers are power supply boxes such as the two below (one on the left is in tact after I ripped it out of the tower, and one on the right is then further ripped open to reveal its guts).

It's not an easy process to wedge your way into the interior of these solidly-built, metal-encased things - but with the right tools and persistence, you can hack it open and find the treasures you seek. There are a lot of zip ties everywhere inside to clip off, and a lot of hidden screws to unscrew in order to get to the gold. The 'gold' in this case is a 12V fan. Let me clarify - it's a 12V fan with TWO wires (positive and negative). There are plenty of other fans inside the PC tower that are more easily accessible than ripping open the power supply, BUT those fans all have 3 or 4 wires and therefore are more complicated than what you need. I discovered on an online forum that I could find a simple 2-wire 12V fan inside the power supply. I must admit, I do get joy from the process of destruction when I know I'm going to be upcycling obsolete technology (which, by the way, I found on the curb near to my place). My living room floor was a mess, but a joyful mess.

Maybe you can find compressed air for cheaper than $10.99.

One thing that Andrew doesn't mention, but which I feel is important to know, is that when you're scavenging parts out of the insides of old computers, they will be very dirty and dusty. You will have to clean them, particularly in this case since an incubator is supposed to be a sterile environment, or at least the possibilities for bacterial contamination minimized as much as possible. So, prep yourself with a can of compressed air, some rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs. Compressed air is great for cleaning dust and crap out of tiny spaces. Rubbing alcohol will finish the job and sterilize things to a certain point. *Ultimately, asepsis is a whole other issue.

I was pretty grossed out by the filth inside the computer towers I took apart (there were four of them). Your other option is to simply go to a computer repair shop and ask for a 12V fan with two wires. They must have tons. It likely won't be free, but then again, it might be.

See that little white adapter on the ends of the fan cables? You can clip that off with wire cutters so that you can poke the ends directly into a breadboard. Or you can plug jumper cables directly into the adapter. I chose to clip it off.
I cleaned the fan blades like the obsessive perfectionist that I am, two or three times with rubbing alcohol, until no more caked on dust was to be seen.

Now, before you snicker about my wiring, I want to qualify that I am an artist, and I like the aesthetics of bare DIY electronics, and using excessive wiring is intentional. It was an awesome artist named Erin Sexton who showed me how to appreciate the aesthetics of excessive wire, gave me permission to get messy and stringy (and, being a textile artist, I clutched onto that idea for my own use). I could make neat little bridges in my circuitry, but I chose to have large, looping wires. And besides, this is the prototype, not the soldered unit that will go on the incubator - but the soldered unit will likely be loopy, too.

Here is the breadboard wired up with the fan (fan is barely visible in the background to the right):

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend designing your wiring from looking at mine. Andrew Pelling has much better photos with neat and tidy wiring that makes more visual sense. Mine is a jumble.

Fan schematic.

One thing Andrew forgot to include in his list of components needed: a 1N4007 diode. He does include the diode in his schematic.
That component is mentioned in the Instructable that Andrew refers to (well, the Instructable uses a 1N4004 but I used a 1N4007, since that is what is in the schematic). So, the revised list of components needed:
1x TIP120 transistor, 1x 1kOhm resistor, 1x 100uF cap, 1N4007 diode, 12V DC Fan, 12V power supply.

What I have here that Andrew doesn't show in his photos is this sweet little YwRobot power supply for the breadboard. You can get a similar one here. It even has an on/off switch, so you don't have to unplug your power source every time you want to change the wiring, code, whatever. Great for prototyping. My Arduino is running off the power supply to the breadboard (blue and yellow wires). This power adapter is for 5V, but my 12V fan is running just lovely with it. I've plugged a 12V power supply into it to test it out and it all works. Maybe it'll burn out faster, I'm not sure, but I'm not worried about it right now. The power source I'm using (the power cable I've got plugged into that breadboard power adapter) is an old cable from my Zip drive from many years ago. Sometimes it pays to hoard the obsolete tech! At this point, I have an electronics junkyard growing in my living room.

Here's another look - it's on and the fan is moving:

So, why not just plug directly into the Arduino to power the fan? Because technically it's a 12V power supply you want for the fan, and the Arduino can handle max 5V.  For my prototype, though, I am running the fan on 5V. Ultimately, that might even be enough to circulate the heat and CO2. More testing will happen once the rest of the incubator is built.

This is what your IDE should look like, when uploading the fan test code to the Arduino:
(I think there's a newer version IDE available on the Arduino website, but anyway...)
This is the code I copied directly from Andrew Pelling's github and pasted into the Arduino IDE. And by the way, IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment in case you were wondering.

I've been playing with my new fan all day, happy to see life in my build. There is a clear and definite connection between something alive electronically and a biological system, something which I was only able to fully appreciate when I began working with both simultaneously. There is a huge amount of pride in making a system work, or building something that functions well. The process of building that system, whether hacking a biological system or an electronics/digital system, is akin to craft. Craft is making something that works. In the case of this fairly basic project, I've brought obsolete things back to life: electronics zombies! Then, shall we call this e-zombie craft for fun?

biohacking the apparatus - BIOREACTOR

posthuman craft

I've written previously about the consideration of the nonhuman agents that participate in my work, willingly or not - can a microorganism even be 'willing' in the way a human can be 'willing' aside from the decision to live or die in a set of circumstances? And how much of that live or die impetus is an actual decision as we understand decision-making? As in, willful? Karen Barad has written, in her piece entitled, Posthumanist Performativity, about posthumanism as encapsulating the basic principle of decentred human action. That is, a posthumanist world acknowledges that, while humans exist and act on the world, they are not the only influential actors/performers and indeed are often acted upon, themselves by nonhuman performers. This shift in thinking follows the decline of the idea of humanism, or anthropocentrism, that places human beings at the centre of importance in reality/ the world. Humanism itself, I would imagine, followed the decline of placing God or supreme beings at the centre of importance (e.g. religion). So, no longer are gods, gods. And no longer are humans god-like. 

More and more exciting and interesting news articles emerge online each day, about the important role of gut bacteria in determining the health and wellbeing of its human host. This is merely one example of a posthumanist perspective on health. The idea of viruses has been around for some time but the latest Radiolab podcast delves into not only the idea of random viruses floating around and interrupting human functioning, but that our own microbes, our embodied bacteria, contain virus DNA as an offense against those viruses that would attack our bodies. Of course, the Radiolab episode is much more than that, but my point is that we have thoroughly culturally shifted into a posthuman consciousness. With this in mind, I realize that I must reframe my current art practice within the parameters of posthumanism. This philosophical framework, often thought of in lieu with robotics, augmentation/prosthetics, computers and the digital, is also fully applicable to biotech but requires a humbled perspective.

I've written on previous blogs that science (health sciences, biotech) and religion promise the same sorts of things. My project, The Ossificatorium, explored the false dichotomy between science and religion. They both promise healing, release from the pain of material existence, and an enduring state of being. What biotech is now focusing on is not simply prolonging or augmenting human life, but on other actants, other forces that make the material world go 'round. We are not gods. Our gods may be the candida albicans, the e. coli, the c. difficile, the bizillions of microorganisms that are more us than us and that influence our moods, outlook, capacity to act in the world. In this vein, my recent biotextile project:

I think of myself as an artist, a creator. You can't get much closer to being god than that occupation. Indeed, humans are creators. However, depending heavily on the activities of another microscopic life form to complete my work for me - and I say 'my' work lightly - is to adopt the posthuman perspective. And I think the posthuman perspective is not so contemporary, either. Farmers, I'm sure, understand environmental actants, insect actants, bacterial actants and cosmological actants as prime influences on the success of their creative endeavours (moreso than themselves). Craft, then: another skilled trade (with a focus on aesthetics and functionality). My skilled trade of creative tissue engineering is completely dependent on the nonhuman actors and it is THEY who are central to the creative process, not ME. This is the crux of posthuman craft as I see it. The question is, can I even call myself an artist in this context? Perhaps I'd be better called a curator? What contribution does my performance make to the end aesthetic/ functional product? Is it an object or is it an entity? Oops, that's another discussion.

I'm not a PhD (yet), so my philosophy is patchy at best, but this (posthumanist question) is one of the critical questions to ask in a BioArt practice, and a critical perspective to engage with in terms of my own work.