THIS IS A ONE-YEAR JOURNEY OF BAR 25 : THE DIY-BIO MOVEMENT 2017-2018, IN SEOUL , SOUTH KOREA. THIS PROJECT WAS LED BY DESIGNER YESEUL KIM, ARTIST DURUPHIL AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS.
INTRODUCTION
Project BAR 25 : One Free Bio-Hack
Description DIY-BIO Movement, Bio Art and Design Project
Members & Contribution
Yeseul Kim : Leader, Co-Director DIY & Fabrication Projects, Organized seminars and workshop, Publication, Directed exhibition
Duruphil : Co-Director, Artist Conducted biological experiments, Directed art project, Video archiving
Duration 2017.02. ~ 2018.01. (12 months)
Funded by Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
ONE YEAR JOURNEY OF BIO-HACK MOVEMENT: BAR25
Written by YESEUL KIM Project leader, Director
The concept of Bio-hacking is more recognizable nowadays than before and is familiar to creators and artists. For the last decade, since bio-hack movement or bio-art was more introduced and executed in Seoul, where I lived, it has strongly motivated many creators and artists. It was likely to inroad on the biological world regarded as inaccessible for non-biologists. Back then, I had little knowledge and inspiration from it. I was an industrial designer who sought a chance to play an exclusive role on top of the typical domain of industrial design. However, at the time entering a huge firm or dedicating myself to a design agency was only considered as doing a proper job. If I want to be an unconventional designer jumping over two or three different domains and to figure out what I can do in such a position, that would mean I should create it rather than finding it or should twist the existing role of the designer. Deviating the orbit is quite risky. I needed to embrace the possibility of not returning to the insecure carrier belt where it feeds us ceaselessly. Moreover, a question that I ran into was ‘would I still remain a designer?’. Even though I ran a few errands successfully and somehow made a project work and achieved a goal, could my job still be defined as a problem solver? Or else, would I fall into the endless deepsea of failure and lose my track for-ever?
Let’s go back to the time when the BioHack Academy from Waag society was first introduced to Seoul in February 2017. Participating in the 10-week program was a huge turning point for me. It came to me as a good opportunity to explore what kind of role of designer I could carry on. In several projects, I positioned myself as a project organizer and director. I was eager to draw teammates’ motivation and ideas. After the finish of the project, I wanted to keep continuing unfinished bio-hack projects by initiating a certain collective or group. Since at the time there was no bio-hack alike group or activity in Seoul, I had to plan and set the tone of the new bio-hack movement. It was a challenging and unpredictable start. To make it successful somehow, I needed to take several things into account.
First of all, finding reliable and motivational colleagues was a priority for a long journey. Although I was capable of making and finishing my own plan, interacting with other creators would elaborate on my idea and lead the project in the right way. Luckily, I met an enthusiastic artist ‘Duruphil’ in the BioHack Academy who was then a master student of fine arts and was still suspicious about her talent and her way. Despite it, she didn’t hesitate to throw herself out into the unknown area. For someone like her obsessed with her body and health and desperately wants to have a vision to the molecule level of the world, having biological knowledge and biohacking mentality were inevitable. With her inspirational idea and momentum, my initial idea and direction could be set. I was a leader and director managing the most of the process but we have alternatively led each other during the whole journey. Our main projects which were actively relied on my DIY and fabricating skill was also for realizing her artworks.
Beyond teammates, our other goal was putting together attention from people who were interested in Bio-Hack Movement. Their attendance and interest would have been expected to give us earth down motivation.Though Facebook group and promoting short term projects, a few people with various backgrounds such as biologists, writers, designers, and artists participated in our seminar and workshop. Lots of people came to our exhibition, the final project, give us an opinion and advice, directly and indirectly. We could be aware of how our project could make effects locally.
We would say the manufacturing milieu in Seoul is one of the strongest motivations for embarking the bio-hack movement. Beyond the famous modern view of the world’s most haptic city Seoul, it has the incomparable giant manufacturing cluster in the heart. The area called ‘Cheonggyecheon’ everyday draws manufacturers, makers, and even artists. we have a long history joke ‘you can make everything here even it may be a rocket’. Yes. that is not a joke. No city has this generously accessible manufacturing cluster. What will be a reason we just leave it? Not only that, but it was the time when the government would like to run the creative industry way bigger than before including the DIY maker culture. Lots of funds and support programs went to artists. No reason was there not to ride on the wave. We could begin our project team ‘BAR 25’ with supportive benefits from outside.
For creators and artists, bio-hacking opens a gate allowing them to have a molecular gaze to the world. Genuinely they are often seized by tangible and visible materials as a way of delivering their messages and intentions. Such a perspective would possibly broaden to invisible objects, for example, microorganisms according to the growing of interests in climate, environment, sustainability and mostly our own body. They have been uprising as an important topic in the art and creative world. Being capable of understanding and manipulating the microsized world give them the possibility to extend their media. It could be more fascinating than any others.
BAR 25 projects gave focus on making a bridge where non-biologist could meet the bio-experiments based on their needs. Most of all, they can not easily access to expensive professional apparatus in a biology laboratory. Even if they could, a high barrier would exist between nonbiologists and apparatus. We planned to provide them a guide to form an individual and low-cost laboratory, so-called ‘building my own laboratory’. Several open-source communities already offer various plans for making DIY equipment and the Bio-hack academy of Waag society also has it as part of their program. However, what we focused on and developed was making a guide adjusting our environment and circumstances. Most of our redesigned and created making guides are not excessive what we could get and buy in the city. From hacking to recycling, we suggested a total of 6 basic devices and released them as open source.
With equipment, we captured another strong need from artists and designers related to bio-hacking. As interests of sustainability increase, bio-materials have recently attracted attention from creators. Among them, bacterial cellulose and mycelium styrofoam are popular due to the accessibility and extensibility of usage. The bacterial cellulose is mostly famous as an alternative fabric in the fashion industry. The mycelium styrofoam has a strong possibility to replace non-degradable styrofoam as a growing package. Two materials are still developed in various labs and factories for different purposes. We explored and developed the recipe giving a direction to grow them in our kitchen with easy ingredients. Also, we had an experiment to add other substances to the materials to see the extensibility of the materials. The results and processes are released to the public of course.
Lastly, we had an exhibition at the end of the project to show the whole result of projects and artworks. BAR 25 was selected to the Live-Arts Program of Platform-L Art Center, Seoul, and had a chance to get an exhibition hall for a couple of weeks. The exhibition was entitled ‘Techne Paranoia’. The title reflects that our artworks mainly delivered and reflected anxiety and obsession with our body and environment. The exhibition consisted of a small laboratory with equipment and materials that we have developed and, on the other side, huge art installations were displayed and visitors could experience and sympathize with our idea and the concept of the exhibition. Through the exhibition, we got a bunch of feedback and critic from audiences. That gave us the overall insight into our activity and we could expect the future direction.
Throughout BAR 25 project, I tried to figure out how the bio-hacking movement would engage in art and design activities. We could find and share difficulties and challenges when having a biology experiment. Our whole journey would inspire other creators and be helpful to the next related projects. In the end, we hope our guide and experience become a good example or precedent which can contribute to the opensource and making community in Seoul.
BAR 25 : One Free Bio-Hack
DIY-BIO Movement, BIO Art and Design Project
Motivation
Bio-Hack Academy
Make a group with amazing collegues
Funding Program from SFAC
Opportunity
Local Advantages
Seoul, the giant manufacturing cluster.
Accessible Febrication
Equipments
The wide distribution of 3D Printer. Decreasing of difficulty and price of making devices.
Opensource Platforms
From hardware to software, Hackers and creators share their knowhows and schemes over the world.
1. 3.
Organization of participatory activities
SEMINAR & LECTURE
Once a month, we invited enthusiastic participants. Having a talk and lectures of recent biology issues.
WORKSHOP
Giving participants new developed bio materials and let them explore the possibility and usability.
Audiences
Makers
Artists Fans
Biologists
Geeks
Nerds
Development of opensource ‘Bio Recipe’
BIO EQUIPMENTS
Building my own laboratory.
Development of more than 6 equipments for biology experiment.
Clean Bench Test Tube Lacks
C-Mount Microscope Incubator
Magnetic Stirrer
Presentation
EXHIBITION
Suggesting a plausiblity of the future in an artistic and visual way. Getting feedback and shering idea.
ARCHIVE
Putting together all results and now-hows on archive in a form of a book and website. Providing it as opensource.
BIO-MATERIALS
For Artists and Designer looking for alternative and sustainable materials, two bio materials are developed.
C-Mount Microscope Magnetic Stirrer
4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
INITIATIVE & MOTIVATION
VERY FIRST MEET YOU, BIO-HACK
BIO-HACK ACADEMY
WAAG SOCIE TY + MMCA The A rt FabLab
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
In early 2017, I came across an announcement from the Art Fab Lab of MMCA (The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea) saying that they would invite around 10 participants to the Biohack Academy. The BioHack Academy is a 10-week program directed and organized by Waag Society, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Waag Society is a world-leading fab lab where novel and innovative experiments take place regarding creativity and technology. I, as a designer, who wanted to make a new contribution to an interdisciplinary realm between design and technology, found the program fascinating and challenging. A few weeks after the announcement, 10 participants gathered in the Art Fab Lab. We took a few basic biology lessons and attended seminars remotely from the institute which was more than ten-thousand miles away. Along with the program, we carried out several biological experiments and projects such as growing bacteria to make sustainable leather and building my own bio laboratory. We managed to complete a handful of projects. But some projects took more than 10 weeks and it was a shame to abandon them in the middle of the process. Moreover I was eager to further explore the possibility of the intersection between biology and design. It pushed me to keep working on DIY Projects and developing them as a form of artwork after the end of the program. With an artist, Duruphil, another participant in the program, we made a team and started looking for a way of continuing and developing our rough but fully promising ideas.
FILL THE POCKET, GET FUNDS!
Selected for the Artist Funding Program ‘Y-Makers’ From Seoul Foundation of Art and Culture
The team was formed. The plan was ready. But our pockets were still empty. After the BioHack Academy, we first had to search for a place. We decided to transform our kitchen and artelier into a biology laboratory. We believed then DIY projects must seem low-cost and rough. Our last concern was budget, as is typical for artists. In 2017, both culture and movement of makers were trendy and became a national scale business. As a part of it, SFAC, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, had designated a huge amount of budget for related projects. They recruited a few artists and collectives. With a bunch of government style documents and a reasonable budget plan, we were invited to interview. It resulted in earning around 20,000,000 won, the equivalent of 15,000 euro. It propelled us to concretize our plan for the next half of the year.
MORE GATHERING, MORE DISCUSSION
The most enjoyable moment along with the BAR 25 project was to have seminars and invite people with different backgrounds. We had 3 seminars in total including a few lectures of (about?) biology related issues. Each seminar had a debate session for sharing and developing idea. We organized the content, opened our facebook page for promotion, and invited people. Back then, the only mistake we made was that we promoted our project too cooler and more attractive than we actually were; it was enough to draw attention from a few biologists and bio artists as well. Unfortunately, we cannot help but inviting only 5 or 6 participants. We prefered to profoundly have a chat with a small number of people than arbitrary strangers. It turned out a great opportunity where we were able to learn a lot and got advice from them even after the project was finished. We still have contact to them and share knowledge as well as recent Bio Art issues. Of course, we encourage each other to go forward to own project.
THE FIRST SEMINAR
Date
Topic
The number of participants
29.07.2017. Sat. 15:00 - 17:00
Introduce to Bio Design, Bio materials and DIY 7
Since it was held at the beginning of the project, the first seminar was focused on introduction of our group and plans to the participants. We shared idea and research regarding Bio Arts and Design, and got motivated for future direction. We brought a few domestic and oversee Bio-hack projects and recent trends and issues. Most participants were creators and designers so that we managed to hear (listen to) what they think about in terms of the intersection of biology and creative works. The first seminar lead us to elaborate upon the direction of the plans and (to) make our plan more concrete.
THE SECOND SEMINAR
DateT opic
The number of participants
26.08.2017. Sat. 13:00 - 16:00
The definition of Bio-Art and the ethics behind the aesthetics. 7
The topic of the second seminar was the ethical matter of Bio Art. It begun with reviewing and talking about the article ‘Bio-Art: The Ethics behind the aesthetics’ (F. Stracey, 2009) published by Nature. While we savor all the works of art driven from imagining and crafting the future, ethical values have often been forgotten and dismissed. This argument led us to polish a critical perspective toward existing works of art as well as our ongoing project.
THE THIRD SEMINAR
Date
Topic
Lecture
The number of participants
24.09.2017. Sun. 16:00 - 18:00
The molecular gaze for the body
Epigenetics: beyond DNA sequence
Lecturer: Hakyu Kim 6
In the third seminar, we invited a lecturer who gave a one-hour lecture of an uprising topic ‘Epigenetics’. Following that, we had an extra discussion about the ‘Genome project’ related issues and the limitations it has. Furthermore, we had a talk about how and what aspects of epigenetics could affect biology and our perspective to our body. In the second session of the seminar, we read an article together ‘The molecular gaze for the body’ and continued to discuss the mutual effects between biology and fine arts.
LIVING WITH MICROORGANISM ON YOUR DESKTOP! HOW?
Build your own laboratory
Possessing own biological laboratory in my kitchen or on my desk is not a high-cost dream anymore. Thanks to affluent open source communities, tons of guides for making the biological devices from the level of children to professional, are broadly released and easily accessible. We put together needs from artists and bio-hackers. Then we listed a few producible devices with considering the feasibility and the availability of components in our time and financial circumstances. A handful of apparatuses were made in several DIY techniquel; hacking, recycling, and reassembling elements of finished products that had similar functions to the equipment we were going to make. The steps of making them were decently arranged and archived as an open source form which was later published through the/a book ‘The Bio Recipe’. Here are 5 representative biological devices we designed.
C-MOUNT VIDEO MICROSCOPE
CLEAN BENCH
TEST TUBE RACKS
INCUBATOR
MAGNETIC STIRRER
DIY PROJECT
CLEAN BENCH
When you start to handle microorganisms, the very first thing you should do is to be equipped with a sterile space. Invisible dust and living germs always fly in and out of your workspace. Under the condition, you might not able to expect a precise result from your experiment. Most biologists have an expensive and huge-sized clean bench in their lab. We designed our DIY clean bench carriable and affordable. Most of all, it is capable of reaching the same level of sterility with that of a professional clean bench.
TEST TUBE RACK
In a biological experiment, a test tube is one of the most basic tools. Let’s forget the simple and cheap tube racks. We designed a playful tube rack module which can be extended by adding 3D printed elements. The more experiments you conduct, the bigger the new tube rack will grow.
C MOUNT VIDEO MICROSCOPE
A microscope is essential to explore the molecule-sized world, especially for visual artists who use images as a source of their works of art. The images captured through a delicate lens are fascinating and they definitely broaden their artistic imagination. It is natural to say that the clearer image we like to get, the more costly a microscope gets. We hacked a basic microscope and designed an attachable mount which helps a DSLR camera connect to the lens of microscope and get high-quality images easily.
INCUBATOR
Each bacteria and each microorganism have its own optimistic environment to grow, especially the degree of temperature. That is the main reason we need a controllable incubator. Of course it can be a reason why refrigerators were invented. For a DIY incubator, I took away every components from my power mac G4 that I had kept for more than 10 years since it had died. After long waiting, the old mac was ended up with being filled with a heating pad and Arduino to control and regulate the temperature.
MAGNETIC STIRRER
Blending more than two different solutions is a common labor in biological experiments. It requires ceaseless stirring with your hand throughout a day. This cheap and quick-made magnetic stirrer could save your time and energy. We put away a fan from the old mac used for our DIY incubator and assembled it with a random box and a rotation regulator. This looks perfect to mix not only chemical solutions but a cocktail at a party as well.
THE NEXT IN MATERIAL GROWS IN YOUR ROOM 5.
Could biomaterials be the next in the materials? In light of its effectivity and economical effect, lots of problems are still waiting to be solved. Having said that, biomaterials are already fascinating to artists and designers who are willing to explore them beyond conventional materials. This project aims to make an easy and accessible making guide and let creators culture biomaterials by their own hands.
BACTERIAL CELLULOSE
Bacterial Cellulose is cellulose made by bacteria. More familiar cellulose for us is the plant cellulose used widely in various fields like paper and fabric. Bacteria cellulose is finer, stronger and more delicate and recently more developed in material science and engineering. In fashion and industrial design, the artists’ trials in developing and bring it to their works draw attention. With its uprising, we explored the possibility and extensibility of bacterial cellulose in a rough and daily environment, not in a strictly controlled laboratory. Based on guides opensource, we experimented with factors such as change of color and substances, making basic bacterial cellulose various. Following our guide, artists and designers would be able to transform this material into another one on their purpose.
MICELIUM STYROFOAM
Styrofoam in the era of delivery is an indispensable material. As the styrofoam used and discarded increases, so do the concern of the environment. Mycelium styrofoam made by mycelium - fungus-like bacterial colony - combined with the agricultural leftover like peels of corn plants, could be an alternative to soothe the overwhelming trash issues. Given its efficiency and cost, it has to be improved in many aspects. But the fact that it has infinite possibilities has no doubt. Moreover, industrial designers who are responsible for discarded materials of products will definitely have interests in this degradable material. By mixing a certain amount of substances, leaving for several days and baking in an oven, everyone could easily craft the bio styrofoam in their home.
THE BIO RECIPE, easy, simple, readable wayfinding to bio-hacking
Our main purpose of BAR 25 project is to spread bio-hacking culture and movement and to give basic practices to people interested in combining their creativity and biology as a nonbiologist. What we designed and explored through several projects could be archived and released in various forms. I believed a form should be a book. Most of all, we decided we were going to release all guides in the form of a recipe like a cookbook which allows everyone to follow steps in an easy and kind way to reach a goal. Additionally, in a rough making environment, a book is still a strong and intuitive media, even though it is impossible to modify a book once it publishes unlike a website requiring endless revisions. We named the book ‘The Bio Recipe’ and structured all contents to look like a cooking recipe with some elements like steps, tips, ingredients, and cautions.
The total of 200 books of The Bio Recipe were published. Books were spread to artists, makers and making spaces in Seoul. Although most of them were not related to biology or bio-hacking, we hoped that it somehow gives them inspiration.
THE PARANOID OBSESSION OVER TECHNOLOGY 7.
The last and biggest highlight of the project is an exhibition. Most projects introduced at the earlier part of this journal are DIY and biohacking guide helping and encouraging people to try and make their bio-related creativity. They should be concrete, firmative and most of all, understandable for everyone. In the exhibition, however, where we were going to represent our artworks more demonstrative and expressional. Our focus on bio-hacking activity has basically been driven by an obsessive need of observing our body which can not be figured by general perspective. Changes and effects on our body and environment are mostly coming from invisible world where we can not easily detect and notice. Certain activities, for example, watching the invisible world through a microscope or making bacteria and microorganism visible could definitely help us change our view and understanding of the world. We called our molecule level of observation ‘paranoia’. In the point of this, obsession would be solved and released by depending on the power of technology, we specified the exhibition title ‘Techne Paranoia’. Throughout the exhibition, our artworks would be displayed as a remedy or cure for our obsessive thoughts towards the biological world; how we fight, how we understand and how we are frustrated with all of combats to overcome the difficulties of understanding. We tried to construct the exhibition provoking thoughts from audiences.
While searching the adequate place for the exhibition, we found an announcement of Platform-L Art Center saying they will call for artist and collectives with experimental and performance arts and will lend them exhibition halls for certain days. This was the first ‘Live Arts Program’ hosted by Platform-L Art Center. They still keep running the program every year. But since even then it was the first year of the program, nothing could be expected what kind of program would be accepted. We wrote down our yet on-going plan of project and exhibition on an application form. Even though no one of us weren’t assured of being selected, the bio-hacking movement as the topic of exhibitions was not common and conventional, we had a tiny expec-
Exhibition ‘Techne Paranoia’
tation to be accepted. A couple of weeks later we got a mail that we were selected to the program. Filling the 100 m2 space is quite challenging and we started to direct and organize what would be exhibited on our large hall by having lots of discussion and talks.
Title Techne Paranoia
Date 17.11.2017. ~ 27.11.2017. (11days)
Location Platform L Art Center - Machine room
Artists Yeseul Kim, Duruphil
Host BAR 25
Support Seoul Foundation of Art and Culture
Bioluminescent bacteria in the artwork from
Duruphil
The layout of the exhibition is as important as the stage design of a play in that it determines the whole impression of the exhibition. Artist ‘Duruphil’’s work was a huge installation project with hundreds of test tubes where bioluminescent bacteria were glowing. Her plan was to install them in a radial shape allowing audiences to walk through in and out of art work. Around the main installation, other projects were arranged. This structure let audiences experience the beauty of the cluster of bioluminescent bacteria at first, and then look around other projects.
Landscape of the exhibition
Projects: Building your own laboratory
On one side of the exhibition, a laboratory was installed that can actually carry out biological experiments. With apparatuses that we designed we were able to show audiences how we cultured bacteria and carried out experiments during the exhibition. They became the part of the artworks. By doing so, audiences could see whole process of the art works from production to completion.
DIY Projects: Bio Materials
DIY
The bio recipe book which includes the whole journey of BAR 25 was also introduced for the first time. A lot of visitors dropped by the exhibition and we could have a talk about the exhibition and the project. Getting abundant feedback and critics was the greatest moment of the exhibition as the end of the journey.
The Bio Recipe and Brochure of the exhibition
Art Works
THE END OF THE JOURNEY
WHAT’s NEXT?
Difficulties and Challenges
We luckily carried out the most of the projects without any serious troubles or accidents. But there were several difficulties and challenges we had run into. First of all, for the precise experiement, the controlled sterile environment is required. For it, we made the clean bench that worked properly. But outside of the bench in a rough environment, the bacteria is often likely to be contaminated or contaminate other substances. Additionally, even though we pursued to do biological experiment with low-cost and unprofessional environment for everyone, it sometimes had dangers of dealing with hazardous solutions or substances. We asked help and advice to professional biologists or bio hack pioneers who had already experienced. Nevertheless, strict regulations to prevent any accidents are needed. With these difficulties, bio-hack projects are more challenging and inspirational. We hope that our experiences and struggles could contribute to the next biohack and DIY projects.
Not only that, but we also had a big question of whether we could keep continuing projects without a fund. Yes. Budget is always an essential issue. To make income, several ideas were suggested, but it means we should accept the conflict with the initial intention to contribute to opensource. Running a community and art practices might be challenging which the question of whether we are going to keep relying on a fund or be independent.
Feedback
Since this sort of project was not a general topic at the time, our project got a lot of attention from the beginning. That was one of the amazing parts we had through the project because we also needed advice and feedback. To figure out how bio-hack practices worked on the community interacting directly or indirectly with creators and biologists was necessary. In that sense, we regarded the presentation and publication such as exhibition and the bio recipe as the most important thing. After the exhibition, we were invited to an interview from the most biggest korean media art magazine. Thanks to interviewer’s thoughtful questions we were able to have an interview that could articulate our project. We hope our project could inspire to other creators who want to explore the biology world.
