CBE News Update May, 2002 Volume 5, Issue 5   Bioglyphs: a living collaboration with bioluminescent organisms   __________________________________________   This interdisciplinary, inter-species exhibit was the first of its kind at MSU-Bozeman.  Over a period of two months in the spring of 2002, students and faculty from the MSU School of Art met with students, staff and faculty at the Center for Biofilm Engineering to explore the possibility of working as partners in a creative project that would bridge science and art.  Those early conversations led to the decision to enlist a third party of collaborators:  bioluminescent bacteria from the ocean.   Meetings were subsequently held in a CBE lab to introduce the School of Art participants to laboratory equipment and techniques, and to the practice of "painting" on prepared petri dishes with a sort of "invisible ink" composed of liquid medium inoculated with the bacteria.  Then the microorganisms themselves went to work, multiplying on the plates and beginning to produce light within 24 hours.   The result of this three-way collaboration was a collection of bioluminescent paintings.  In the darkened gallery, the only light available to view the art is that produced by the bacteria themselves.   What do we know about the bioluminescent organism used in this exhibit?  We know that it is a single-celled marine-environment bacterial isolate, probably of the Vibrio species, though we do not know its exact identity.  We know that it only grows on a high-salt medium at relatively low temperatures - considerable lower than the internal temperature of the human body.  Like many marine organisms, this one produces blue light through a chemical reaction.   More information about bioluminescent organisms can be found at this website: http://lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/   Peg Dirckx designed and wrote the brochure for the exhibit, which is filled with interesting information about the exhibit as well as pictures of the bioglyphs and the people who created them.  The brochure can be viewed as jpg files below.   Brochure - Front Cover (207.35 KB jpg file) Brochure - Back Cover (275.82 KB jpg file)   Betsey Pitts and the bioglyphs made the front page of our local newspaper.  Below are links to  Bozeman and MSU news stories.   Paintings with glow-in-the-dark microbes exhibited this week MSU News by Annette Trinity-Stevens and posted April 22, 2002     Bioluminescent art show at MSU Bozeman Daily Chronicle, April 22, 2002 by Jacob Goldstein, Chronicle Staff Writer     __________________________________________   Diane Williams  editor of the CBE News Update