During the time of quarantine I have been experimenting with methods of culturing microorganisms based on techniques and procedures used in DIY microbiology and artistic methodology. For this, mixtures of different culture media (with organic waste from cooking and special inks) for growing microorganisms have been made, revealing shapes and structures derived from the diversity of these living beings like fungus, algae, bacteria, viruses and yeasts. These microorganisms are being collected directly from the atmosphere (air) of the city of Bergen, being invisible to the human eye but omnipresent as an essential part of the biosphere and being evidence of the richness of microscopic ecosystems.
The cultures are contained in petri dishes, each one of them is a complex embedded microscopic landscape (microuniverse), painted by the microorganisms that developed there. These will be part of a video performance combining photographs of the growing process and live video using many kinds of DIY microscopes and lenses from recycling electronics. The result will be as a space travel where these microuniverses will be visualised by spectators on a large format projection as part of the programming of the Piksel20 festival.
