Utter: On the Matter of Human Emissions
Simulating human breath, in-vitro.
Project is Not Currently Available
This project has reached full capacity for the current term. Please check back next semester for updates.
Project description
The goal of this project is to create an artwork exploring the metabolic processes and social implications of human breath. Utter is a multi-sensory set-up that produces odiferous emissions, simulating human breath, microbially, in-vitro, outside of a human body. The Utter apparatus will be fabricated almost entirely out of scientific glass.
A student working on this project will undertake varied laboratory work at the Coalesce Center for Biological Art, 363 Hochstetter Hall. The student will be responsible for experiment design as well as laboratory work and documentation. For example, one integral component of the project, which lends itself to individual experiment design, is the fabrication of a suitable artificial saliva.
Project outcome
It is expected that the student will complete a component of the final artwork (such as a unique preparation) over one year and will document their results, create a presentation for an undergraduate conference and hopefully a professional art-science conference or workshop series as well (such as ISEA festival).
Project details
| Length of commitment | Year-long (10-12 months) |
| Start time | Spring |
| In-person, remote, or hybrid? | In-person |
| Level of collaboration | Individual student project |
| Benefits | Stipend |
| Who is eligible | Undergraduate students with knowledge of studio art and experience in a university chemistry and biology lab.
Proficiency in camera-based photography and digital photography software, such as photoshop. Preferable that a student has taken Biological Art, ART 464, or Art and Life, ART 331. |
Core partners
Project mentor
Paul Vanouse
SUNY Distinguished Professor
Art
Phone: (716) 645-9121
Email: vanouse@buffalo.edu
Start the project
- Email the project mentor using the contact information above to express your interest and get approval to work on the project. (Here are helpful tips on how to contact a project mentor.)
- After you receive approval from the mentor to start this project, click the button to start the digital badge. (Learn more about ELN's digital badge options.)
Preparation activities
Once you begin the digital badge series, you will have access to all the necessary activities and instructions. Your mentor has indicated they would like you to also complete the specific preparation activities below. After you’re approved to begin the project, your mentor will send the relevant materials. Please reference this when you get to Step 2 of the Preparation Phase.
- Read Bioart and the Vitality of Media, Robert Mitchell, University of Washington Press, 2010.
- Read "Utter: On the Matter of Human Emissions", Paul Vanouse. Art and Biotechnology: Viral Culture from CRISPR to COVID, eds. Louise Mackenzie and Claire Nettleton, Bloomsbury Press, 2024.
Keywords
Art, Biology, College of Arts and Sciences