A Curatorial Perspective on Two Objects

Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics is a research project and exhibition that revisits the collaborative artistic practice of Beatriz da Costa (1974-2012) as a point of departure for analyzing her work along contemporary artistic practices combining art and technoscience as well as ancient and non-academic forms of knowledge production. The experimental practice of da Costa introduces a unique collaborative model of interdisciplinary public intervention, workshops, and critical writing. Her understanding of biopolitics, theories of self-care, and her use of technoscience are issues that together question concepts of life, death, extinction, multispecies engagement, and a capitalist system that uses science to control our bodies. The two selected works, PigeonBlog (2006-2008) and Transgenic Bacteria Release Machine (2001-2003), function as tools to examine and expand access to scientific modes of environmental knowledge in the public sphere.

PigeonBlog was a collaborative endeavor between homing pigeons, artists, engineers, and pigeon fanciers engaged in a grassroots scientific data-gathering initiative designed to collect and distribute information about air quality conditions to the general public. The project specifically collected data in Southern California which ranks among the top ten most polluted regions in the country. The pigeons were outfitted with custom miniature air pollution sensing devices enabled to plot and visualize data in real-time onto Google’s mapping environment, thus allowing for immediate public access.

Considering that hazardous air-pollutant facilities are frequently routed through low-income and marginalized neighborhoods, the burden of health and work-related problems is placed on already disadvantaged sectors of the population who have the least means and legal recourse to defend themselves against this practice. PigeonBlog was an attempt to combine DIY electronics development with a grassroots scientific data-gathering initiative, while simultaneously investigating the potentials of interspecies co-production in the pursuit of resistant action. It aimed to re-invoke urgency around a topic that poses serious health implications, but lacks public action and commitment to change; to broaden the notion of citizen science while building bridges between scientific research agendas and activist-oriented citizen concerns; and to develop mutually positive work and play practices between situated human beings and other animals in technoscientific worlds.

Transgenic Bacteria Release Machine was developed as part of GenTerra, a project with the artist collective, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Transgenic Bacteria Release Machine was a simple robotic game machine that held ten petri dishes on its circular surface. One dish contained transgenic E. coli bacteria (a harmless strain found in the human intestinal system), with the other nine containing bacteria and mold samples collected from the surrounding environment. As part of the GenTerra performance, visitors were invited to interact with the Transgenic Bacteria Release Machine. By pressing the red power button, the machine spun its wheel and randomly stopped after a few rotations followed by the mechanic arm opening the corresponding petri dish. In a one to ten chance, the red light indicated that the machine would open the transgenic dish and a green one for the wild bacteria samples. The machine was designed to help people understand and reflect upon the environmental impacts of transgenic organisms through a playful and interactive lab performance.

Da Costa viewed artists as being in the perfect position to invent new ways of conveying information and generating public interest. PigeonBlog and Transgenic Bacteria Release Machine exemplify this notion, viewing animal-kind as communicative objects and collaborators and inviting the general public as active participants in the co-production of knowledge.

Exhibition page.