Other [tiny] forms of life Project
Other [tiny] forms of life is a collective, communitarian and indisciplinary expedition to get to know and co-create with the micro-biodiversity that inhabits and conforms three parks and a wetland in Bogotá. The creation groups were in charge of investigating which bacteria and fungi are present in these public spaces, with microbiology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics techniques, including DNA sequencing, and with artistic processes such as drawing, photography, poetry writing, bioart, and generative modeling of sculptures using the genetic code.
During our encounters, we collected samples of the environment and culture microorganisms in petri dishes, which resulted in amazing Petri-art. We extracted DNA from strawberries to be able to see it with bare eyes. Then we took soil samples and sequenced the DNA of all the present microorganisms through a technique called metabarcoding, and later on transformed those genetic codes into sculptures using a 3D version of the game of life.
Through the Code of life board game, created by us to approach bioinformatics, programming, and coding, we transformed the behavior of the local macro ecosystem into poems and back to a genetic code, which revealed the 16S gene for a bacteria to be found in the sequenced data base and to be compared, through the BLAST platform, with previously identified existing sequences. Later on, with our open parametric modeling program, those 16S genes, which identify microorganisms, were transformed into digital sculptures. We 3D-printed some of them and we are currently exploring the possibilities of replicating them in nutrient agar to get an organic compostable sculpture able to grow, once more, the bacteria community to which the gen belongs. Sculptures that are materially and poetically generated and constituted by the genetic code of the encountered bacteria.
This creative experimental project has been co-created between the microbiology and biotechnology laboratory CorpoGen and the arts and emerging media laboratory Mutante, as an articulation of methodologies for collectively exploring, thinking, and creating new comprehensions and relations to nature. Other [Tiny] forms of life explores the diversification of knowledge and ways of knowing; the in-disciplinarity of knowledge, methodologies, and techniques; and the situated and emerging co-creation of understandings, meanings, and the communitarian network itself.
The mobile lab built into a cargobike visited the Nacional, Simón Bolivar, and Entre Nubes parks, and the Juan Amarillo wetland, during May and June 2022. The sculptures were printed and cultured in 2023.
You can get to know the documentation of the whole project here:
How are the sculptures generated?
To find the micro biodiversity present in a soil sample, the sequencing technique called Metabarcoding is carried out by extracting a specific gene from the microorganisms that are present, the 16S gene. This gene, which is only a fragment of their genetic code, gives us all the necessary information to identify the different species of bacteria and fungi. With the sequencing process, the DNA that has been separated for this purpose is transformed from biological to digital information; each of the nitrogenous bases is converted in our computers into one of the letters: A, C, G, T.
Once we have the digital information, which is a long text written with the mentioned letters, we convert it to binary code, which allows us to activate or deactivate the cells of a Game of life grid. Thus, each letter is composed of two cells, which can be either on or off, and the grid has a size that corresponds to the length of nitrogenous bases of the 16S gene of the selected bacteria.
With this grid and the entire 16S gene code of the bacterium converted into game cells, we initiate the Game of life, in which each iteration generates a new layer of binary information of the code, as the next generation of the game. This builds the three-dimensional version of the genetic code into a sculpture that expresses it. By allowing the game to run for a certain number of iterations, we choose the configurations that enter the edge of the chaos proposed by Langton (1991) (named so by Norman Packard of the Santa Fe Institute in the late 1980's). That is to say, the threshold where the dynamic system manifests a complex and ultra-sensitive order, in which an enormous variety of patterns are presented for which there is no brief and unitary description. These are those configurations that allow patterns of complexity to emerge resulting in new artificial ecosystems (Acosta Yaver, 2017) that are embodied in the sculpture as a "phenotypical" result of the code that is self-constructing.
The Game of life is one of the first examples of artificial life of Cellular Automatas, created by John Horton Conway. It is a computer program that, with quite simple rules, seeks to imitate the behavior of living organisms. These are the rules: 1. If a cell is alive and has two or three living neighbors, it survives. 2. If a cell is dead and has three living neighbors, it gets born. 3. If a cell is alive and has more than three live neighbors, it dies from overpopulation. 4. If a cell is alive and has less than 2 neighbors, it dies.
The upcoming sculpture was generated with the visual programming software Grasshopper (Rhinoceros 3D plug-in) together with the "anemone" and voxelization plug-ins for Windows. This sculpture is derived from the 16S gene of the Chondromyces Apiculatus bacterium, found in the Entre Nubes Park. The gene has 1400 pairs of nitrogenous bases, which when doubled in quantity by being translated into binary code results in an approximate 53 by 53 grid. The game ran for 106 generational iterations.
ESCULTURAS GENERATIVAS
Chondromyces Apiculatus bacterium
Chondromyces apiculatus (Myxobacteriales) - Development of Swarm-colonies and Morphogenesis
Author: Reichenbach, Hans
"The film shows the complete developmental cycle of chondromyces apiculatus (Flexibacteriae - Myxobacterales - Sorangiaceae): the germination of the fruit cysts, the wandering of the germ swarm, cell movement and cell division, the development of the swarm (the colony) as well as the formation of cell accumulations in the swarm and their differentiation to fruiting bodies." https://av.tib.eu/media/9184
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Blog post by Natalia Rivera and Carlos Acosta
The generative modeling program of the sculptures, together with their 3D printing, has been developed by Carlos Acosta Yaver and is based on the explorations made in his thesis project "Biocomputational architecture and evolution of habitable biodiverse ecosystems" (2017).
The Other [tiny] forms of life project was proposed and developed in a collaboration by Mutante and CorpoGen laboratories. Complete credits can be found at: https://www.mutantelab.com/opfdv
References:
Acosta Yaver, Carlos. 2017 “Arquitectura biocomputacional y evolución de ecosistemas biodiversos habitables” Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Recuperado de: https://repository.javeriana.edu.co/handle/10554/40322
Langton, Chris. 1991. "Computation at the edge of chaos: Phase transitions and emergent Computation" En: Stephanie Forrest (comp.), Emergent Computation: Self-organizing, collective, and cooperative phenomena in natural and artificial computing networks, Cambridge (Massachusetts), MIT Press, pp.12-37.
Reynoso, Carlos. 2006. "Complejidad y Caos: una exploración antropológica", Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sb editorial.
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