The opening ceremony took place in the Robert Koch Hall on 8 October. Historically, the Robert Koch Forum is one of the most significant places of science in Berlin. Here, the concept of interdisciplinarity has always been a major focus and the cooperation between scientists has led to some of the most important discoveries of our times. Among other things, the Robert Koch Forum was the place where, for the first time, images and sound were used to illustrate scientific data. The humanist interplay between the disciplines, also taking into account modern technology, forms part of the conceptual background of Sabine Kacunko’s art performance. The place, where Robert Koch presented the tuberculosis virus and thereby profoundly influenced modern microbiology, served as a communicative platform.
Humboldt’s Philharmonic Chorus, conducted by Professor Constantin Alex, presented the sound performance ‘Chorus Oceanobacillus Pulvirenatus’, which transformed the scientific data of the ribosomal sequence into an aesthetic body of sound. Irina Urusova, student of agricultural sciences at Humboldt University performed the Life Flag anthem ‘Hymnus Oceanobacillus Pulvirenatus’. The latter was composed especially for Life Flag – News from Everywhere by Ari Benjamin Meyers, while the sound performance was designed in cooperation with Sabine Kacunko.
Alexander von Humboldt’s dust sample from the Ehrenberg Collection in Berlin was the point of departure: In 1823 in Paris, Alexander von Humboldt received a little tube of ‘cosmic dust’, which was collected in Calabria, Italy. Later, he passed it on to Florens Chladni and today it is stored in the Museum of Natural Sciences in Berlin as part of the Ehrenberg Collection. As later discovered from further examination, the tube does not contain ‘cosmic’, but red-stained Sahara dust. In cooperation with the Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene – Charité University Medicine (head at the time Professor Dr Ulf Göbel) the theme of the flag was developed with the support of team Moter. Ribosomes were stained, using molecular biology methods. This way, ribosomal sequences were made visible. The extraordinary aspect is that ribosomal sequences can be found within life forms such as bacteria, plants and animals as well as human beings. Consequently, the conceptual focus of the art performance was put on these ribosomes. A scientific sequence analysis brought to light a sequence of the 16S rRNA, which until then had not been identified. As initiator of the cooperation between sciences and the arts, Sabine Kacunko named this sequence ‘Oceanobacillus pulvirenatus’ – reborn from the dust.
The installation at the Schloßplatz, Berlin-Mitte was another important venue: This is the place in the centre of Berlin where the new Humboldt Forum is being built and which, in this sense, functions as a symbol for Berlin’s readiness to further immerse itself in interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue. The virtual Life Flag moved freely as a 3D-animation in public space. The movement of the flag was calculated by software specially developed for the event. A computer processed the data of the wind coordinates, which were being transmitted live from participating countries.
In- and outside of the Martin Gropius Bau took place yet another installation, entitled LIFE PROPAGATION. For this, Professor Dr. Anna Gorbusina (Head of the department ‘Materials and Environment’ of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing [BAM]) reactivated and reanimated microorganisms from a historic dust sample received by Alexander von Humboldt. As part of a global phenomenon, the desert dust was carried by winds from Africa to Europe. This way, Sahara dust reaches distant regions of the world. The minerals of the desert dust form an essential part of the nutrition of various ecosystems, such as the Amazonian rainforest or the oceans. On their way, the microorganisms that adhere to the dust particles support and influence the spatial and functional interaction of living creatures and biotopes of all the habitats where the dust settles.
Inside of the museum, the Set-up of the experiment was made transparent: a video microscope recording the cell cultures was installed on a table in the museum and connected to a computer. The growth of the bacteria was projected live onto the Martin Gropius Bau, which, due to building works, is currently surrounded by scaffolding. The elements that serve to remodel the façade of the building became part of the installation. The construction foil was used as projection screen for microscopic images of the living bacteria cultures. The light functioned as a binder between the various layers of time, material and content. This way, past, present and future are ‘put on top of` or penetrate each other. The projection showed bacteria as though they actually ‘communicated’ on the building. Sahara dust also reaches Berlin and has impact on the environment there. Thus, it was an element of the natural biofilm of the Martin Gropius Bau. The installation pointed out the interface between micro- and macrocosm and, at the same time, became a complex allegory for society. The reanimated bacteria cultures became a symbol of life itself – an existence independent of the limits and artificial laws of culture. Bacteria are the origin of life. They defy the limits between cultures and disciplines. By doing so, they highlight and emphasize plurality as the natural entity of life.
The project is being realized in cooperation with Charité Berlin, the Humboldt University, the Free University, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The project was supported by Schering Foundation.
Comment
With this project, Sabine Kacunko managed to create another „diplomatic piece of art“, in which the appellative aspect stepped out of the shadows of the visualised processes even more. On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Charité Berlin, an exhibition and art action titled LIFE FLAG – NEWS FROM EVERYWHERE took place at the Robert-Koch-Forum / Institute for Microbiology and Hygiene as well as other places in Berlin in October and November 2010. The complete action picked out the ecological, political and economic balance and both conscious and unconscious human activities involved in it as a central theme and reflected them within the frame of Berlin’s scientific year 2010. The project consisted of a series of different media art actions and events in the public space. Its focus was on the efforts for a synthesis out of economic growth and environment protection as a challenge for the 21st century. The densely distributed network out of 129 embassies in Berlin – the European capital with the most diplomatic representative bodies – was used for the circulation of the BOOTSCHAFT („message“), which, printed out literally on flags, had a divided awareness of ecological concerns together as a motif, metaphor, model, material and
medium.
The participating 75 embassies received the LIFE FLAG, a flag with the same motif, which was flown in all the embassy buildings for a week. The presentation of microorganisms was chosen as a basis for the motif. Their ‘protein factories’, the so-called ribosomes, were coloured with molecular-biological technologies, FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridisation) diagnostics, by a team at the Institute for Microbiology and Hygiene at the Charité. The thus visibly made ribosomes appear both in bacteria, plants and animals as well as in humans. In the process a new subunit of the 16s rRNA sequence was discovered that occurs in plants, animals and humans and the artist as its discoverer named this ‘Oceanobacillus Pulvirenatus’ – ‘Dusty Rebirth’. The bacteria cultures originated from a historically unique dust sample from the Sahara Desert, which Alexander von Humboldt received as a gift in 1823. Today, the sample is in the Naturkunde Museum Berlin and is property of the Ehrenberg collection. The Berlin action was also the starting point for further art actions that were continued over the globally spread network of embassies (and on the Internet too).
The question that arose here was and is: What particular meaning can such invisible processes to the unaided eye have for us? First, there is certainly the meaning of the operation matrix of our biotechnological age, in which molecular biology, above all genetics, in connection with computer technology as bioinformatics, amalgamate into a new powerful technological reality. The possibility for isolation, identification and recombination of genes thus makes the gene pool of our planet accessible as a primary raw material resource. LIFE FLAG used the methods of recombination in the service of a BO(O)TSCHAFT / SAY(IL)ING, which addresses the application of ecological and human resources as well as art and science as sources of collective knowledge. In this way Sabine Kacunko used this project, again, not just as an appellative or utopian art, but a deeply realistic one, since it was based on existing networks. Not only the virtual networks of the Internet but the naturally and culturally analogous networks of embassies and messages, the representatives of the humankind.
Second, the issue of the meaning of invisible processes, which LIFE FLAG supported, was likewise visually addressed. The extremely efficient, pigment-forming micro-organisms that were displayed on the surface of the LIFE FLAG make sure that one can rightly speak of the smallest biological causes with greatest aesthetic impact. A social plastic (maybe not entirely in the sense of J. Beuys) without the stagnancy of a sculptural form, but an animate transformation – a message, so to say, made sure that the artistic process was grasped as an emergence of culture as an expression of the transformation of nature. LIFE FLAG served as a symbol and metaphor for this transformation of the animate, which represents its constitutive condition.
Since the successful reanimation of the historical dust sample in LIFE FLAG, the artist has made further visible traces in the dust the subject of her investigation. The ‘reanimated’ bacteria cultures created digital and analogous ‘sayings’ / Bo(o)tschaften; they became the centrepiece and initial point of the ensuing media installation and other projects. In these projects, the blunt beauty of the bacteria culture in its other, all-embracing meanings was brought to the public’s attention. Sabine Kacunko repeatedly points out in her projects the multiple ‘functions’ or views that the bacteria convey to us.
(Slavko Kacunko, October 2010)
