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Bio Art

“To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” - Leonardo da Vinci

Art exists since the origins of humanity. Likewise, science has always been prompted by a desire of knowing more and more about the world, the nature and life.

While developing Printeria, we had the chance to get into the vast applications of the BioArt world: a contemporary art form that adapts scientific methods and biotechnology to explore living systems as artistic subjects (1).

As a consequence, we decided it was necessary to promote the existant synergy between art and science through the interaction with the BioArt ways of expression

Printone: express yourself

While creating our Printeria Part Collection, we decided to provide bioartists with a complete DNA toolkit for their artwork production. To do so, we assembled several transcriptional units with our differents reporters (GFPmut3, sfGFP, YGP, mRFP, amilCP ) and a variety of promoteres and RBS of diverse relative strenghts.

By this way, we finally obtained Printone: a palette of pigmented bacteria, composed of different colours and intensity tones, for the entire disposal of the bioartist.

We used this variety of colours to introduce, both ourselves and the general public, to the Microbial Art field: an artistic form based on the creation of agar plates artworks with living cells. We were introducen into this kind of art thanks to the advice and information gathered as part of our Integrated Human work with artist professionals. In fact, the spanish Bioartist María Peñil, who works hand-by-hand with the researcher Mehmet Berkmen, helped us to in-depth understand the Microbial Art approach. Indeed, we sent them some of our Printone samples, as they were really interested in introducing the increase the use of genetic engineered bacteria to paint with.

FOTO COLORES

Bioartist for one day

How to attract people to SynBio? It is possible to achieve this challenge in a subjective and eye-appealing way?

While developing Printeria, we realized we had there the perfect way to approach SynBio in a nerby and attractive way to the non-researcher world. Thus, we designed the practical session ‘Bioartist for one day’.

The activity took place in the Mustang Art Gallery (Elche), a cultural space dedicated to the diffusion of contemporary art. This workshop involved last year high school students of arts, science and social sciences, so we could be able to interact with a wide range of different profiles. However, this activity not only involved students, but also their teachers and some local artists who were interested in getting into the world of the bacterial art.

In this activity, they created their own ‘living masterpice’. Previously, we did detailed explanation on how to properly use the lab material and cells during simple microbiology protocols such as plating. Thus, they learned both from the art and microbiology worlds. Then, using solid agar plates as a canvas, inoculating loops as brushes and the palette of pigmented bacteria we self-made in the lab as tempera, they blew their minds to do imaginative Microbial Art. As soon as they finished, petri dishes were collected, kept and sealed for a later incubation in our lab. Finally, a gallery of all their beutiful works was published in this Instagram account, so everyone could share them and so create interest into Bacterial Art among society.

As a conclusion, this workshop was a total success, and both the public and ourselves were delighted to realize the beauty of the microbial world and its simple but yet appealing applications.

Yturralde: fusion between art and science

José María Yturralde is an spanish artist widely known for his relationship with science. He collaborated with artists and scientists to redefine his understanding of shapes, and explored ways that the mainframe computer could be used as a tool for complementing his art practices (2). In this context, we thought it could be a great idea to introduce him to the vast possibilities of the BioArt world, and so learn about his life experiences all at once.

As part of this outreach collaboration, we decided to recreate one of his masterpieces, from the well-known collection 'Impossible Figures', with our own genetic engineered bacteria.

To do so, we printed a 3D mold of the figure to delimitate the barriers of the drawing, so we could then inoculate each coloured bacteria in a compartiment of the solid agar medium. Finally, using bigger than usual agar plates, we were able to recreate his artwork. After several trials with different colour tones and molds, the final result was perfect.

Impossible figure artwork. Yturraldes's masterpiece and the equivalent Microbial Art version