bio.display

Since the discontinuation of our DIY Bio-Lab at FabLab Budapest, our equipment has been utilized by the Városmajor High School in Budapest, and later they traveled to Maker’s Red Box (formerly known as Makerspace).

Earlier this year, I’ve decided to donate all equipment to the Creative Technology Hub at the Moholy-Nagy Design University (MOME) in Budapest, Hungary.

Post on MOME’s site available here.

Thanks to Tamás, we have our shiny new 2L glass container full of bacteria. The images below show a reducing oxygen sequence. All images taken f/4.0, 1 sec, ISO 1600.

Yesterdays experiment with growing Photobacterium Phosphoreum as a liquid culture came to fruition today. It seems that the ‘botched’ liquid culture from two days ago came to light today as well. The following images show the result, in a pitch dark room with some reflection off the wall (well, a tiled bathroom), at 10sec, f/4, ISO 800:

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 10sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 10sec, f/4, ISO 800

In short, I prepared two 100ml cultures (one PP BH and one PP LumA)  in a 500ml Erlenmayer flask each, with the following composition each:

• Nutrient Broth: 8g/1000ml -> 0.8g
• NaCl: 30g/1000ml -> 3g
• Glycerol: 10g/1000ml -> 1g
• CaCO3: 5g/1000ml -> 0.5g

The ‘botched’ bottle from two days ago had the same ingredients, but in cca. 180ml of water. The result is well visible in a dimly lit room. I personally can’t tell the difference between the PP HB and the PP LumA variants.

The bacteria light up only when you oxygenize the culture, for example, you shake / stir the liquid culture. after that, it stays visibly bright for about 7 minutes. See the following image sequence, taken in a loosely lit room in 1 minute increments, at 3s, f/4, ISO 800:

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, right after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 1 minute after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 2 minutes after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 3 minutes after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 4 minutes after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 5 minutes after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 6 minutes after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 7 minutes after stirring, 3sec, f/4, ISO 800

Yesterday I did some experiments with Photbacterium Phosphoreum, received kindly from Simon Park, I received two different batches, one simply labeled PP BH, the other PP LumA. I grew out two of each on agar plates, with the following ingredients for 4 plates, 80ml of Agar total:

• Nutrient Broth: 8g/1000ml -> 0.64g
• NaCl: 30g/1000ml -> 2.4g
• Glycerol: 10g/1000ml -> 0.8g
• CaCO3: 5g/1000ml -> 0.4g
• Agar: 15g/1000ml -> 1.2g

I also tried to create a liquid culture, where I botched the ratios and ended up with twice the liquid for the amount of ingredients.

The plates lit up overnight, the liquid culture didn’t. They are quite bright when compared to Vibrio Fischeri. Below are images with various ambient light and photo settings used to take them. other than cropping the first two images, no modification has been made. The two plates on the right left are the PP HB plates, the right ones are the PP LumA plates.

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 2s, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 2s, f/4, ISO 800

Photobacterium Phosphoreum,
1/2s, f/4, ISO 3200

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 1/8s, f/4, ISO 3200

Photobacterium Phosphoreum, 1/80s, f/4, ISO 3200

the bio.display project is featured on the front page of the Hungarian online newspaper HVG, together with other bio art projects.

• HVG article – in Hungarian

The Fab@Home 3D printer I used to create the bacteria prints is now being utilized by hackerspace budapest, a new formation created by IT enthusiasts in Budapest, Hungary. I really hope they will make good use of the hardware & contribute to the effort of developing a cross-platform control software for the Fab@Home printer.

Simon Park & Anne Brodie have created a photo booth where they take photographs by illuminating their subjects by bacterial bioluminescence – light generated by bacteria – instead of traditional light sources.

The created images are quite interesting.

• Bioart Windsor blog entry

Jelte van Abbema just won the Dutch Radio Prize for his project – printing by letting bacteria grow an fill in the area that should be colored.

Congratulations!

• via de zeen

Yesterday I had the privilege to present bio.display at the Budapest New Technology Meetup. Here’s the video – albeit in Hungarian:

https://vimeo.com/6943598

Maróy Ákos – bio.display from Budapest New Tech Meetup on Vimeo.

The bio.display project has been featured on the biopunk blog site. Thanks for the  mention, guys! 🙂