The full and Thames censored message

Part of the message

A close revealing the complex structure of the words

A close revealing the complex structure of the words

One of my works at “Exploring The Invisible”, Trinity Buoy Wharf. I took water taken from the Thames, and used this  to infuse a paper canvas.Next,  I  differently exposed the medium  to light, using a negative image, so that the normally invisible photosynthetic microbes naturally present in the water, would form a poem,  written in a living green ink which has arisen from the river water itself. Nature is capricious though, and the Thames seems to have censored the intended message, and created its own interpretation.  

Here are the words of the original poem:

Grey Thames at flood in balance swung,

Grey gulls scared mewing overhead,

The chill grey wind a requiem said,

And over all the grey sky hung.

Mortlake Bridge, Fred S Thacker, 1920

A dark patina of microbial growth on a local bottle bank. It’s tempting to speculate that it feeds on alcoholic fumes, and thus on the residue of our celebrations, intoxications, or various needs for oblivion. Snails have fed on this dark ecology, etching complex glyphs into it and bringing it to light.

Incubation time 13 days

Incubation time 7 days

Incubation time zero

Close up, incubation time zero

Four week’s incubation

Four week’s incubation

This is  a novel process which uses natural waters, sunlight, carbon dioxide, and photosynthetic microorganisms to make sustainable and living pixelated images. These are small scale trials that demonstrate the process and prove its feasibility.

Glyph

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I sat in a dark room with a liquid culture of bioluminescent bacteria. As I watched them, this is what they did. They formed these complex and dynamic glyphs as if they were trying to communicate with me. Were they trying to tell me something important?

In preparation for my upcoming exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf, I sampled the finger tip microflora of its human inhabitants, both resident and transient. Here’s what grew. Given the importance of our bacterial microflora, I’m feeling a little like a microbiological palm reader or fortune teller. Beautiful forms and diversity.