(sorta) Big in Japan

Toshihiko Katsuda, a reporter for the ASAHI Shimbun, visited us at the Museum of Arts and Design during the World Science Festival.  He took lots of photos and asked great questions.We just received this PDF of the story he published, entitled "Artistic E. Coli".   I was delighted... or at least, I thought maybe I could be? An unusual situation.  I replied, "Looks great! ... but uh, What does it say??"  He humored me. For the translation, read below. Thank you Toshi!

Our Day at the Museum of Arts and Design

Here are fabulous students from Ms. Shu's class at the Juan Morel Campos school printing and painting designs to E. coli!  They began by printing to paper the many images I'd already cultivated on stacks of petri dishes. (I'm demo-ing this above). Then they turned their attention to making their own original designs, applying the clear solutions of E. coli to the agar plates we'd prepared. After the prints dried, they sealed and mounted these in clean petri dishes; 2 students created a sculpture from the mounted prints. Lots more great photos below the jump!

Take a Look at the World Science Festival Blog

Molly Webster, the tireless producer of our Bio-Art program at the Museum of Arts and Design, has learned an awful lot about what goes into creating prints from cultured, hand-painted genetically-engineered blue E. coli bacteria.  It's been great to read how someone with a bit more artistic-remove describes our work -- check our her two posts from our festival week here. 

Preparing at the Lab

Printing and Painting at MAD

Thank you so much for all your help and spirited words Molly! Stay tuned for pictures of finished work soon to come...

Join Us at the World Science Festival!

Once again, we will be offering an educational program at the World Science Festival. Come see us on
Thursday, June 3, 2010, 3:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Museum of Arts and Design

Ms. Emily Shu's art students from the Juan Morel Campos High School will be learning about microbiology as they spend the afternoon painting their own designs in bacteria, and printing other designs cultivated the day before by Amy. Throughout the program, the public is invited to visit the Museum's Open Studio, to observe the printing and painting process.

Participation by invitation only; public welcome to observe. Free with admission to the Museum of Arts and Design.
Special thanks to Katayoun Chamany, Associate Professor at Eugene Lang College, for providing lab space and support!

World Science Festival Street - What Grows?

Thank you to everyone who visited our tent at the World Science Festival Street Fair on Sunday -- and a special thanks to the 200+ artists who contributed drawings (or written ideas) to our Impressions of Growing collective art project. We will be very VERY busy in the lab growing your ideas in e. coli over the summer! Check back (or subscribe to our blog) for updates on our progress... and our plans to share this work with you. See more photos from the festival below...
*Annie, Lissa & Ivory... our deepest thanks, we couldn't have done it without you! 

Printing Day at the Harlem DNA Lab

photo by joey o'laughlin

Success! After 18 hours in the incubator, our bacteria designs emerged in a beautiful range of blues and effects. The students/scientists/artists had mixed both transformed and normal bacteria together to create subtle combinations of blue and white designs... and many strong blue images were grown and printed today. Bravo!  See how it all came together after the jump...

Harlem DNA Lab - World Science Festival

As part of the World Science Festival's outreach events, we introduced our living paint to 9th graders from the Thurgood Marshall Academy. Thanks to our host, Ileana Rios and the Harlem DNA Lab (a project of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) students learned how to perform a genetic transformation of e.coli bacteria (each making their own version of our "paint") and everyone made 8-10 bacterial paintings. We can't wait to see how the images grow -- all will be revealed on Friday when we return to print our work! Check back for updates.