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>> Data entry: Oct 2018
Bio-Pixels
An Interactive installation generative visual system
January 2018 - June 2019
 
  • First exhibition: 14 June - 14 July, 2018. ArtCell exhibition, Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, UK. 
  • Second exhibition: 8 September, 2018 - 13 January, 2019. New York Hall of Science, New York, USA.
     
  • Software: Custom-made program for image transferring.
  • Programming languages: Java + Processing
  • Hardware: Non-invasive Arduino-based sensors and ‘CMOS Camera’ wereattached with a microscope ‘Confocal Microscopy from Olympus’.
  • Bio-medium: Neuron Dif-ferentiation Kit No: MAN0015919, from ThermoFesher + a highly efficient serum-free pluripotent stem cellneural induction medium,ThermoFisher induction medium No: A1647801. 

Documentation:
>> Infinite potentials.
>> Cambridge Stem Cell Institute
>> Forbes. 
>> Convergence.  

A: A cell of pixels mimicked the differentiation process in synchronized real-time video frames with an under-microscope stem cell. The codes translated the cellular activities and categorized them by color.

B: The A's abstract version that was transformed in real-time.

Bio-Pixels is a stem cell-based interactive generative system that aims to redefine self-making technology. The project, through its two phases, aimed to explore how today's genomic sciences can re-materialize our society towards a globalized identity within the context of the global exchange of biological information among the worlds of genes, bits, and atoms.

The first phase was formed by a visual generative system derived from a human embryonic stem cell. This phase of the project sought a digital remodeling of the biological transformations executed through the differentiation processes by which stem cells move from the identity-free state into a specific cell type. By monitoring and translating the stem cells’ internal movements, the cellular behavior during the differentiation processes would be interpreted visually.

Therefore, the interpreted biological differentiation processes would metaphorically provide a parallel digital constitution in which pixels behave as cells and gain their identity. As a result, this phase is focused not only on envisioning a visual world based on stem cells, but also on exploring an empirical methodology that offers a stem cell-based open-source approach as a limitless approach to reconstructing our own cellular world.

This phase consisted of an unlimited number of encoded images; every one of them represents a separate map of the internal stem cells’ movements in different biological phases of the same human embryonic stem cell. It reveals the relationship between the flow of signals throughout the itinerary of the stem cells' biological differentiation processes and the related infinite behavioral aesthetics of biological identity-making, in which the architecture of the remodeled stem cell is simulated digitally.

GENERATED IMAGES
MORE INFO

The first phase took the form of a visual generative system derived from human pluripotent stem cells (HPSCs). This phase of the project sought a digital remodelling of the morphometric trans-formations executed through the differentiation processes within the stem cell via detecting the kinetic and morphological changes during a neuronal differentiation induced under a microscope.The identity-free digital environment (bits-based cell) is paralleled to the stem cell as the identity-free biological environment (genes-based cell); the first phase, therefore, showed how the identity-free digital environment simulated cellular behavior during the differentiation process and acquired its digital identity in parallel with the processes of biological identity-making in stem cells.

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Non-invasive Arduino-based sensors and ‘CMOS Camera’ were attached with a microscope ‘Confocal Microscopy from Olympus’. The thermal sensors were connected to a custom-made open-source software that was used to write a Java-based program that can provide a real-time translation and categorize the stem cell internal activities through its differentiation processes into differentiated colors as follows:

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– R (red lines) = high-activity areas
– G (green lines) = moderate-activity areas
– B (blue lines) = low-activity areas
– M (magenta lines) = a level of speed between R and G or G and B

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Over 7 days spent differentiating stem cells, the cultured cells were kept under a microscope at the beginning, middle and end of every passage13period and were provided with the required feeding through seven passages until the cells reached the maximum confluence14. The custom-made program worked as a motion detector that translated the cellular behavior during those 7days into specific coloured pixels in particular positions on a digital space to create general activity maps of the stem cell differentiation processes in each passage in the form of encoded frames. In this way, the remodelled biological differentiation processes visually provided a parallel artificial constitution in which pixels behaved as cells. Hence, this series of frames not only seeks an imagined stem cell-based environment but also mainly investigates an empirical methodology that provides an artificial stem cell-based open source as an unlimited approach to rebuild an artificial visual cellular world.

© 2019 | Diaa Ahmed Mohamed Ahmedien | All rights reserved

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