BioArtBot
BioArtBot is a bio-art platform…
that allows anyone with an internet connection to paint using living microbial ink. We programmed our Opentrons liquid handling robot to inoculate agar plates with E. coli in a defined pattern, then we launched a website that lets anyone make a design that we can feed into the robot. By using a selection of five E. coli strains, each engineered to produce a different colored protein, we are able to bio-print the designs in a pixel-art style. You can find the project at bioartbot.org.
We piloted BioArtBot in 2019 and printed 35 unique pieces of bio-art from submitters around the world (including some from the BioSummit family!). Each art piece shown here was submitted by someone from around the world and printed at Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, California, USA. Their titles and a short statement for each are below:
bunny by BT
A portrait of Barn the bunny, surrounded by sparkles.
end greed by JI
“Our lives are scraped and sold to fund their freedom and our subjugation, their knowledge and our ignorance about what they know." -Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
K Loves T by KC
Carving your sweetheart’s name into a tree is old-fashioned. Today’s scientist knows that the best way to proclaim your love for someone is with billions of E. coli cells :)
Lion by TD
A depiction of creatures great and small.
Microbiological Cryptozoological Currency by ME
Sasquatch is a new [completely fictional] cryptocurrency that, rather than relying on powerful computers doing complex calculations, is powered by the relentless division of E. coli cells! Grow E. coli and get rich! Invest today!
Tim Dobbs
BioArtBot is an open-source project run from Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, California, USA. The team is led by Tim Dobbs, a biohacker and automation engineer working to create people-centric automation tools. These are a few of the cool pieces of art submitted to bioartbot.org by people from around the world during the 2019 pilot of the project.
The BioArtBot team hopes to expand the capabilities of the platform in the coming months, so that more people can express themselves with bio-art in more ways. If you have ideas or want to help, Tim would love to talk.
Contact info
![Microbiological Cryptozoological Currency by ME.
Sasquatch is a new [completely fictional] cryptocurrency that, rather than relying on powerful computers doing complex calculations, is powered by the relentless division of E. coli cells! Grow E. coli](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f201c898b5f5516ea2b6ec0/1602061781583-90ZT12YVW59PI1MF2TJA/5.+Microbiological+Cryptozoological+Currency%2C+by+ME.jpg)