Please note this website no longer supports the web browser you use.
We recommend upgrading to the latest Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari.

“CyanoBonsai Project” [2007–/2013改作]

IWASAKI Hideo + SAITO Hanna

Outline

This is bacterial bonsai project to let filamentous cyanobacterium isolated from our university pond make three-dimensional bubble architecture. The width of the bacterium is –2 mm, while it grows one-dimensionally to be filamentous with multicellularity. Upon a certain condition IWASAKI developed, they are able to form bubbles by combination of photosynthetic growth and oxygen evolution. The initial surface is very thin with only an essentially single cell layer, but the size of the bubble reaches –2 cm in a diameter, corresponding 4-km bubble structure with single-layered humans. Thus, the bubble is“huge”architecture for the species Interestingly, most of bacteria become gradually dead but remaining bacteria often form next colonies on the surface of the residual ruin (dome) with quite different morphology under the microscope. Hence, the living history of ancestral generations dramatically affects the way of living in the descendants.

This phenomenon is never known to even scientists. Instead, the biomedia-art project is driving following scientific researches. Currently, the process of bubble formation is being monitored under the binocular microscope, for collection of scientific data. (IWASAKI Hideo + SAITO HannaSAITO Hanna)

Artists

Exhibitions

List of Works