A collaboration with Ryan Wolfe. In this installation a mechanical armature that holds a magnifying camera, scans petri dishes that have been printed in the form of a computer punch card with Cyanobacteria, the world’s first oxygen producing microorganism. When the machine reads the living software, it then alters the light of each of the petri dishes depending on what it reads. Each petri dish holds differing information, generating its own unique lighting pattern. Because the brightness of the light effects the rate of growth of the bacterial colonies, the “data” that the machine is reading changes as the bacteria grows darker green over time.
This project was a commission for DesCours 2008, sponsored by the AIA New Orleans. It was presented in the courtyard of the Pharmacy Museum. Special thanks to Dr. David Longstreth at LSU’s Department of Biology for lab use and attainment of the microorganisms and to the Pharmacy Museum for graciously allowing for this exhibit to occur on their grounds.
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