This Laser Talk is inspired by Bart Vandeput's artistic research project ‘Koelleven’, which explores the intersections of bio art, energy art, art-science, and bioethics. This transdisciplinary inquiry opens up new perspectives on the interplay between microorganisms, the cooling towers of nuclear power plants, lungs, and air. Through his work, Vandeput merges science and bioethics with visual and sonic media, offering innovative ways of understanding and engaging with these complex and vital relationships. We discuss this together with researchers Marjan de Mey, professor in Metabolic Engineering and Suzie Thomas, professor in Heritage Studies.

Questions that can be asked are how micro tuning is challenging preconceived notions about biodiversity, living organisms as resources, and the urgent need for so-named innovative approaches to contemporary ecological crises? How does it express the tensions associated with the microbiomes residing within the cooling towers of nuclear facilities? Bartaku’s project ‘Koelleven’ on attuning with cooling tower microbes, not only delves into the scientific aspects of microbial communities but also offers a novel conceptual framework. By embracing the ethics of attuning, deep sensing, and responding, it aims to inquire about possible ways of reciprocal relationships with these microbial cooling tower communities to foster transformative understandings of multispecies relationships. One of the distinctive aspects of the work is the creation of a visual medium in which the microbial pigments are used for explorative research of dye-based solar cells, microbial biodiversity, and non-extractive bioelectronic futures with the cooling tower landscape.

Koelleven is the first, more visual leg of Bartaku’s research on "How to express the entanglement of microbiomes with cooling towers of nuclear energy facilities lungs, and the air using principles of attuning in an artistic, transdisciplinary inquiry?"

This Laser Talk session will explore philosophical, scientific, and cultural perspectives on the intricate relationships between microorganisms, nuclear energy infrastructure, and the environment. By examining interactions between cooling towers, air, and living organisms, we aim to raise important questions about sustainability, ecological balance, and the hidden ecosystems that sustain life. This talk seeks to foster innovative research and dialogue by weaving together insights from art, science, and bioethics.

Participants:

Bartaku (Bart H.M. Vandeput, PhD) is an artist situated in the fields of Bio- and Energy art. Bartaku's practice explores relations between light, electrical energy, humans, plants and microbes. It senses for – and plays with – tensions between disciplines, process and result, makers and audiences, living and non-living, human and other-than-human. Currently he is senior researcher and postdoc at the Department of Philosophy of Antwerp University. He is visiting researcher at the New Energy Technologies Group at Aalto University, the Centre for Synthetic Biology at Ghent University and X-LAB at Hasselt University.

https://bartaku.net

Marjan de Mey is Professor in Metabolic Engineering at Ghent University where she leads the Metabolic Engineering group at the Centre of Synthetic Biology (CSB). She received her PhD in Bioscience Engineering from Ghent University and was visiting researcher at TU Delft (The Netherlands) and MIT (USA). Marjan’s research interests are at the front of industrial biotechnology, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology focusing on the development of biotechnological production processes.

Suzie Thomas is a Professor in Heritage Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. She completed her PhD at Newcastle University, UK, and has worked in the heritage sector and in academia in England, Scotland and Finland before moving to Belgium in 2021. She is currently head of the Heritage Studies department in Antwerp, and when she is not sitting in Faculty meetings she is interested in so-called 'dark' heritage, heritage crime, and 'outsider' perspectives on culture and heritage.
Detail of Cooling Tower Basin, SCK Mol
Photo by: Tom Heene