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Weapons of Micro-destruction: An interactive interpretation of parasite stinging cells through visual art and music
By Jerri Bartholomew, Andrew Myers and Dana Reason
When I began my study of parasites, it was through the lens of a microscope. Since that time, emerging scientific tools and technologies have allowed us to document the complex processes that occur at the host-parasite interface. But scientific research can also benefit from the creative perspectives of the arts. Relatively new fields, such as data sonification, offer opportunities for visualizing data and seeing patterns. Even illustration, an art long associated with science, continues to evolve through digital media and interactive performance. This collaboration between myself (Jerri Bartholomew, scientist), composer-recording artist (Dana Reason), and visual artist (Andrew Myers) explores the microscopic stinging cells of a parasite, their weapons of micro-destruction, through a new lens.
My laboratory at Oregon State University studies myxozoans, a very large and enigmatic group of microscopic parasites infecting fish. Most closely related to jellyfish and sea anemones, these parasites share with them the common feature of having stinging cells, or nematocysts. What happens when a jellyfish stings is well understood, but as myxozoans have evolved to be parasitic, we are particularly interested in how their nematocysts have evolved to facilitate this novel life style. The initial step of infection occurs when the parasite’s nematocyst fires, releasing a tubule that attaches to the fish. Through scientific collaborations and using high-speed video analysis, we have documented this dynamic process, showing that the speed of tubule discharge and contraction varies between species (Figure 1), and that there have been unique morphological adaptations for parasitism (1). Our research is continuing to reveal information about toxin-like proteins associated with the parasite, how the parasite develops and moves within the fish host, and its evolutionary relationships with jellyfish and sea anemones (2, 3, 4). However, for new insights into parasite development, I extended our collaborative circle to include artistic perspectives, encouraging artistic liberties and interpretations to allow those perspectives space to be examined. Figure 3. Archival video of performance – live drawing of Andrew Myer and musical composition
played by Dana Reason (video credit Stephen Atkinson and Paris Myers). We performed this collaboration as part of the OSU Art-Sci lecture series. I provided a mini-lecture on the parasite and its biology, with examples of my own artwork in glass portraying these amazing parasites (Figure 2). The parasite life cycle was then brought to life through a performance of live drawing by Andrew Myers accompanied by the musical score composed by Dana Reason (Figure 3). Their performance was informed and inspired by my lab’s research and reinterpreted through contemporary creative methods in real time.
Scientific illustration and the use of observational drawing are tools that scientists have used from the beginning. In live drawing, Andrew takes these traditional methods in front of an audience, presenting a glimpse into an interdisciplinary creative process and how it relates to the scientific process. He has been involved with other live drawing performances, including a series of projects with an opera singer and a virtual multi-day project that was open to public interaction. The Weapons of Micro-destruction project has similar collaborative and live, real-time aspects but offers the new angle of considering the scientist’s process and means of research. In my lab, Andrew studied the parasite life cycle and selected parasite stages that were both visually interesting and that illustrated spore developmental and the process of nematocyst formation and firing (Figure 4). During the performance, he worked in a “real time” time-lapse style by drawing a developmental stage with charcoal and then working over the top of that with gesso and conte crayon, covering previous images to create subsequent stages. His pace and technique were affected by Dana’s composition through many lifecycle stages; the drawing ending with the original single cell (Figure 5).
Figure 4. Pages from Andrew Myers' sketchbook. Upper photo sketches of different myxozoan species and renderings of nematocysts. Lower photo a conceptual drawing of a parasite life cycle, showing the flow that evolves during the live drawing.
Figure 5. Timelapse of live drawing (video credit Calvin Atkinson)
In contrast to the long and intimate relationship between illustration and scientific research, the use of sound in research is relatively new. However, work by acoustic ecologists such as Bernie Krause reminds us that every living organism (large to microscopic, in this case) has their own acoustic signal (5). Dana’s challenge was to communicate the ways in which the organism moves through a musical lens, and to give voice to these microscopic parasites. To make these audible, she utilized note choices based on data translations of the numerical data (csv files) of parasite nematocyst firing speeds (in collaboration with bioacoustician, Dr. David Mellinger). She treated the use of these notes freely, and in response to the unfolding of the live drawing by Andrew. She based her composition on five stages of parasite development, but like nature, her music changed in response to the drawing taking place (Figure 6). Cues for the music included the concept of the developmental cycle circling back, and responding to the parasite firing. She treated the data as a collection of vibration, with numbers translating to pitches, ranging from low to high on the keyboard, and thus made audible to human hearing. It is with these specific pitches that she tells the story of my research. In this rendering, she was interested in both imagining the biophony (the sound from the parasites themselves), and including the anthrophony (sounds produced by the humans- in this case, adding the sound of chalk on paper).
Figure 6. Musical score by composer Dana Reason based on parasite development.
The event was co-hosted by an Art-Sci student group, Seminarium, who responded to the scientific data and discussion with artists by collaborating on works that show the parasite attacking the epithelial cells of the host, adding a dramatic visual touch to the process of invasion (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Collaborative mural interpreting the firing of parasite stinging cells by Art-Sci student group Seminarium.
Art seeks to create a picture where words and descriptions cease. The function of working in this way was to pose the question to audiences, researchers and creatives alike: are you able to listen and thus hear the sonic information presented by organisms that do not register in the normal range of human hearing? Because we don’t see sounds, but rather perceive them, or feel their vibration, it is important to continue to inquire about the nature of sound in the communication repertoire of parasites and microbes: do they sense or communicate with sound?
During the Q&A session, the audience responded to the work. One question that inevitably comes up is what I learned, as a scientist. For me, there are two things that I considered when watching the performance. The first is that when we interpret parasite life cycles it is difficult to consider the flow of development. Under the microscope, parasite life stages are static and discreet, and we have to interpret the developmental cycle. In a way, seeing this drawing was like watching a video of the parasite moving through its life stages, seeing cell division occurring, and formation of the coiled tubules in the stinging cells. Another aspect that we rarely consider is sound. If sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a medium, then the action of the tubule firing from the nematocyst, through the medium of water and into the epithelial cell of its host creates a sound. While not perceptible to us, is this vibration perceived by the fish that has just become infected? We have observed that the stinging cells do not fire simultaneously, is this vibration somehow a signal from one cell to the other? References |
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Laura Margaret Ramsey
Weeds exhibit an ability to thrive in even the most disturbed, contaminated, and concretized landscapes that humankind has created. Despite our best efforts to eradicate or control them, they are here to stay, and they will continue to move, spread and grow. When I began considering these wild, uninvited plants, I felt as though I was looking at humanity through a dark mirror.
I collected various species of flora growing from cracks in the city sidewalks, and through capacitive coupling, recorded the unique violet coronal discharge produced. The process that captures this movement of energy is known as electrography. The specimen is placed between a ground plate, and a transparent discharge plate. A high voltage current is momentarily applied creating small arcs of plasma at the points of contact. These long exposures measure the unique patterns of the electrified air, highlighting characteristics in the plant topography, or root systems. Electrography helps to visually isolate these charismatic organisms, prompting the viewer to consider our relationship with weeds, and the human complicity in the sixth mass extinction.
"Peltigara" (2020). Electrograph, video. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Campbell Argenzio
GIF courtesy of the artist.
How can technology enable dancers to collaborate at a distance? Using the machine learning model PoseNet with P5.js, dancers explored working with various interactive geometries as a proxy for dancing with each other in real-time via Zoom and Microsoft Teams. During this time when we are often representing ourselves in a two-dimensional manner, constricted by a screen, the goal was to utilize the limitations of being trapped inside of a zoom window as an opportunity for exploring the boundaries of digital collaboration. Often, when the digital is situated within a context where it must be activated thoughtfully, meaning making occurs. We can be most hopeful when reminded that there are applications in which a balance is struck where neither the technology by itself nor the human activity with which it engages can be carried out in singularity. Digital tools that foster human connection and empathy are the only antidote for the ever worsening digital omnipresence.
The scripts used to create the interactive geometries had very little life unless used by those who also possessed a knowledge of dance and movement. Though the dancers had little to no familiarity with the technology used to make the scripts, their movements were indispensable to the scripts’ activation and outcome. The creation of these virtual proxies was driven by a desire to find connection at a time where there is so little, and to enable those with an entirely embodied practice to simulate togetherness via tools like machine learning, computer vision and creative coding. The scripts were tested among a class of high school students as well as the professional dancers Theresa Niermeyer, Leisa Taylor, and Anna House. The project spun off from a learning curriculum in which high school students were encouraged to use computer vision in their dance studies. This curriculum had two goals; firstly to encourage high school students that they too could be technological creators as opposed to passive consumers, and secondly to enable collaborative dance in a time where most students were feeling isolated. The artwork is documented by a series of gifs that intentionally preserve the low frame rate, pixelation and other artifacts of the real-time, long distance, web-based dance choreography interactions. 
GIF courtesy of the artist.
GIF courtesy of the artist.
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Gwen Charles
Created in May 2020, while streaming live from each of our home-studios based in New York and Illinois, using real-time manipulation of live video and sound with dancer Rachel Gill, overlaid with objects spinning from Gwen Charles’ studio, the overlapping images reflect the dizzying and layered feelings of being under self-isolation under the state-mandated shelter-in-place related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The wide-eyed figures stare out from the center of the record player which plays only the sound of the skipping on the vinyl records, a space between each figure as if social distancing. The figure on the record player wears a swing carousel hat, continuously spinning the small people on the ride that cannot get off. The carousel, a reliable fixture at the carnival, holds a pattern that doesn't change, which can be comforting but also can feel boring or even nauseating to some. The bright-colored figures are from Channapatna, a small town in the state of Karnataka, India devoted to the art of hand turning wooden lacquered toys for over 200 years. The sound is a combination of live sound from the dancer’s movements and from two vintage vinyl records skipping.
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