Why we love microbes
Artists Caitlin & Misha create artworks that play with culturally relevant, yet sometimes utopic examples of sharing communities, livable ecologies, and the transmutation of waste.
They were part of the SPARE PARTS Friday Late on 15 March 2019, where they will took a humorous look at faecal microbiota transplants and led a microbiome meditation. Here they explain their fascination with microbes.
Microbes are the subject of a poem often cited as the shortest ever in English, a poem that simply reads “Adam had’em”. People usually get their first and most significant dose of microbes —a huge array of microscopic organisms, including bacteria, fungi and viruses living on and in our bodies—as they pass through their mother’s vagina during birth. So even though it’s likely that Adam did indeed have them, it is more likely that it’s Eve’s microbes that are still on us today.
Above: This Sphinctegraph shows the types of gut bacteria of faceal microbiota transplant (poop) donors
Microbes suffuse our bodies and outnumber us 10 to 1, making us more microbe than human in some unexpected ways. But the diversity of our microbes, at least in the West, is plummeting at unprecedented rates (exacerbated by the abuse of antibiotics) and is leaving us wondering: who are we becoming?
Our lecture-performance, Shareable Biome, celebrates the history of human/microbe relations and presents possibilities of a future where microbes are better loved. Our research for this project took off upon moving to Boston, Massachusetts three and a half years ago where we met with researchers from OpenBiome, a non-profit stool bank. Poop can save lives! We often shun the fecal matter produced by our own bodies as disgustingly dirty and flush it away. Yet, Western medicine is finally recognizing the alchemical possibilities of this microbially rich content. Faecal microbiota transplants are being used to treat deadly infections and have the potential to treat a vast array of other maladies.
Diagram showing faecal transplants from the OpenBiome stool bank across the USA
Shareable Biome delves into the glories of poop, the vitality of bacteria (and fungi, as we have learned from talking with Elizabeth Witherden at King’s College London while developing our contribution to SPARE PARTS), and the intersections between microbial and social cultures.
Caitlin and Misha’s germ-sharing cardgame, SuperTurd!
We are excited to bring this lecture-performance to Science Gallery London and King's College London, where microbiome research is making new discoveries (such as how to recreate the gut microbiome in the lab via the work of PhD student Emily Read) and questioning old dogmas.
Caitlin & Misha employ traditional drawing, design, and sculptural techniques within a contemporary framework of interactive media and participatory installation. Among other things they create installations, games, and happenings where audience participation is a key component of the work and its message.
Their microbiome-inspired germ-sharing card game SuperTurd! was in The Gut space at the centre of the SPARE PARTS exhibition at Science Gallery London from 28 February to 12 May 2019.
March 13, 2019