bio.display

Rune Peitersen came by yesterday with an ASL Mobile Eye, so we did some recordings with it while doing labwork. Interesting to see from a first person perspective, and where your eye is looking…

Just checked on the state of the fab@home fabber. Well, it does fire up, thanks to Bastiaan Ekeler 🙂 Open issues to make it work as a simple fabber are:

• some edge detectors have to be replaced, as I blew their connectors when soldering
• for some reason the syringe motor is not working

It would be interesting to make it work and experiment with it like that already.

To modify it to work in the biodisplay installation, we need to:

• get the JTAG adapter that can be used to re-flash the ARM controller
• get a pump that does 5μl or smaller drops
• do some coding, so that all this is controlled after entering a bitmap

Evan from the fab@home list suggested LEE fluid valves to be used, and we’ve seen the Bukler valves earlier. Let’s see if either of them works out.

Jennifer Willet has posted some pictures which were the results of the bio-art class I held on DNA transformation using bacteria and green fluorescent proteins.

Nice to see that things actually grew out 🙂

Check them out here.

We’ll have to kill the bacteria for sterilization purposes after it has expressed the imagery we need, because of regulations regarding genetically modified organisms. A straightforward solution seems to be to use UV light to do that.

Traditionally, UV light of 185nm and 265nm are used for such purposes, which are the peak wavelengths of DNA absorbing UV light (and getting damaged in the process). The idea is that as the DNA of the bacteria is damaged, it is unable to reproduce anymore, and will die as well eventually.

But there are also some results showing that longer wavelength 365nm (and thus simpler, cheaper) UV light can be used for sterilization as well. These lights would be easier to use as they are made of LEDs.

I guess we’ll have to investigate…

After spending some time in Venice last week, preparing for the Corpora exhibition, I’m ready to pick up the threads again for the bio.display project.

The overall plan for the remaining 3 weeks here are:

• verify bacteria sterilization via UV lamps
• get and build the precision valve that is capable of the arabinose drops 5μl or less
• start to reprogram the fab@home 3D fabber (get a JTAG adapter for it, etc.)

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Early last week we had a two-day meeting with experts throughout the field of the currently established bio-art scene. Everyone of importance was here. And yet, it was striking in the lineup already: there was 1 scientist only among about 15+ artists in the group.

What struck me during the discussion is the repetitiveness of some basic notions that artists find important, and how I’m not agreeing with them, and how my priorities are very much different.

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Next week, while I’m in Venice on perparations for the Corpora exhibition at the Hungarian Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale later this year, Maarten de Smit, Vincent van Rixel & Joeri Verasdonck will perform some experiments to find out more on:

• what does it take to kill the bacteria by exposure to low-wavelength UV light
• how could the GFP expression be sped up
• what timings are required if the bacteria plate is grown and kept at room temperature (not in an incubator of 37°C)
• what timings can be used with plates that are stored in the fridge

For speeding up the GFP expression, the idea of adding glycerol was suggested by Prof. Péter Maróy, which should make the bacteria happier & faster. Glycerol could either be added to the LB-agar base, or with the arabinose itself.

The other experiments would require preparations and then different timings for UV exposure and adding of arabinose.