Sushi Roulette: Novel plastic pollutants - byproducts of novel & emerging technologies explored using novel DIY science techniques

Piksel Pulse collaboration with S.Net Conference, UIB and KHIB

Bergen, 12th-14th October 2016 at the Student Center, UIB

Workshop / project: 3 day workshop for 15 participants.

With new technologies come new impacts. We will be looking at the unseen and hard to detect impact of our increasing use of “hidden” plastic - plastic that we can’t see, like microbeads, or that we don’t have a narrative of as polluting, such as 3D printed materials. We’ll be refining the DIY chemical tests that we developed at Piksel 2015, extending them from analysing the microplastics in fish to looking at fish market samples.

Over a 1+3 day workshop at S.Net, we’ll take the participants through a process of sample collection on a field trip onto the fish market, and an exploration of these newly developed DIY techniques, to understand better the presence of plastic in the marine environment around Bergen.

The workshops will culminate with a Sushi Roulette afterparty, where through the presence of real and dummy sushi the participants are challenged to test their reactions to the thought of consuming plastics as food.

Keywords

underwater microplastic pollution, anthropogenic influence on the sea life, fish, Nordic sea, DIY biology, DIY chemistry, anthropocene, plastic contained in food, Bergen fishmarket, Bergen fish shops

Links

Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic (CRESC) [1]
Ingested plastic transfers hazardous chemicals to fish and induces hepatic stress [2]

Schedule

Day 11th Oct. Tuesday (from 3pm - 5pm): Field exploration. Visit and buying fish at the fish market in Bergen and other fish shops.

Day 12th Oct. Wednesday
Preparation for the workshop 10-12 AM
Lunch break 12-13h
Workshop 13-18h (activities for participants)
Cleaning 18-19h

Day 13th Oct. Thursday (from 1pm to 5 pm): Establishing an open source and open hardware lab for DIY biology, chemistry and marine fauna research. Debate: Public discussions with local scientist, environmental scientist, fisherman's, artists and interested parties.

Preparation for the workshop 11-12 AM
Lunch break 12-13h
Workshop 13-17h (activities for participants)
Debate 17-18h (activities for participants)
Cleaning 18-17h

Day 14th Oct. Friday (from 10pm to 3 pm): Closing event. Sushi Roulette: Public presentation of the outcome using all the data and tools developed and recorded during the workshop days. The workshops will culminate with a Sushi Roulette afterparty, where real and dummy sushi will be served.

Manufacturing exhibits 9-11:30 AM (processing research results, creating documentation, making presentations, editing videos)
Lunch break 11:30 - 12:30h
Preparation for exhibition 12:30 - 14h (setting up the space, setting up the exhibits)
Exhibition 14-15h (activities for participants and wider public)
Cleaning up 15-17h

Bios

Kat Austen http://katausten.com http://worldflows.net http://opendroplet.org. Kat F Austen is a succession of experiences and an assemblage of aspirations. In the temporal melting-pot of her life so far she has produced work as an artist, an environmental scientist, a journalist, a writer and much in between.

As an artist Kat deals with themes of environment, social justice, communities and human relations to digital culture. She creates experiences, stories and playful installations, mixing fact and fiction closely, so troublesome. She wants to touch your heart, mind, soul, body.

Kat is Artist in Residence at the Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences, University College London, and has been artist for LAStheatre, The Clipperton Project and Utter! Spoken word, among others. She has exhibited widely, including at Museo Diego Rivera, Mexico City, Kulurbraueri, Berlin, Kreuzberg Pavillion, Berlin, The Crystal, London, Schwartz Gallery, London, Regenerate Gallery, London and Williams Art, Cambridge, among others. She has presented on interdisciplinary internationally and has run artistic workshops in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and the UK. She is Head of Research and Design at social enterprise iilab, leading the Open Droplet water sensor project, which was recently included on the Serpentine Gallery’s extinct.ly platform. With this project, she is focussing on co-design, physically evocative representations of data and community stewardship of water.

Kat holds a PhD in chemistry from UCL and worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Cambridge. Her writing has appeared in two book chapters, New Scientist, Nature, The Ecologist and The Guardian, and she consults widely on the intersection of science, art and technology, including as a Futureshaper for Forum for the Future, for the European Commission and UK water regulator Ofwat.

The environment is Kat’s passion, and her interest is largely held by finding intellectual, experiential and sensorial ways of understanding existence in all its complexity. Her work explores the interplay between acts at different levels - individual, collective, communal, municipal, state, national, international - in the context of a global, digitally-enabled society. The aesthetics in her artworks treads the line between naive and polished, messy and sleek, humorous and disjointed. For instance, she drowned a lot of tiny people in a bath to make a point about social media. Kat has a PADI open water diving license and also licence to be crew on the yacht.

Gjino Šutić (Croatia) http://ur-institute.org/ http://biotweaking.com/ Researcher, innovator, artist, educator, founder and CEO & CSO at UR Institute & Gen0 Industries

Gjino Šutić, conducts research in several fields of science, such as; biotechnology & biomedicine, electronics, robotics, computer science & IT, engineering, nanotechnology etc. with a focus in the field of bioelectronics and biorobotics.

Using DIY approach to biotechnology (biohacking), he designs and DIY manufactures necessary instruments and materials.

Invented the concept of "Biotweaking" (improvement of living organisms or their components to exhibit and use their full potential) which fully defines his philosophy and work.

Since 2012. started a public work by displaying his inventions and innovations such as; SRCE, B.O.C.A., MeBUMZ etc., in a variety of scientific and art exhibitions and cultural events in Croatia and abroad. Also, started teaching as an informal educator in biotweaking areas of science.

His work combines complex electronics and biotechnology, and he often uses artistic representation for the demystification of science and for bringing it closer to ordinary citizens.

In 2013. founded and started working as CEO & CSO of non-profit citizen’s Universal Research Institute UR, where he also holds workshops, teaches and experiments. in 2015. founded and started working as CEO & CSO of Gen0 Industries - for production and development of innovations.