"Bakterium – WASSER LICHT(ET) GESCHICHTE"

pigment-based inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photorag

Cyanobacteria have colonised the Earth for about 3.5 billion years and were responsible for secreting oxygen into the Earth's primordial atmosphere for the first time. In this way, cyanobacteria created the basis for the evolution of numerous living organisms and our living conditions today. It is precisely these bacteria with their references to the early history of evolution that are of greatest interest to me in the work cycle "Bacterium". In my works, the bacteria are not only depicted, but rather become the image carrier themselves.
Cyanobacteria are grown in round Petri dishes and poured into an agar emulsion. Due to their phototactic properties, they move towards the light.
In my first project with this image medium, I irradiate the bacteria with a negative of the Kiel submarine bunker Kilian. The organisms migrate from the dark areas and settle in the transparent, light-flooded parts of the image.
The idea of the photographic and fundamental parameters of photography are here transferred into a biological process. Ephemeral states of the pictorial objects are not only depicted in my works, the process of becoming and passing away is contained in the innermost part of the living medium itself.
(Edgar Lissel)