BIO_RES_CRITURAS ACTIVATES IN THE INTERMITTENT DOME AS PART OF THE EXHIBITION 'SAID DOKINS. INSCRIPTIONS' AT LABORATORIO ARTE ALAMEDA

Said Dokins Bio-Res_Crituras, exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Laboratorio Arte Alameda. Photo: Leonardo Luna

A bioart exploration that activates microorganisms as scriptural agents to rethink the human body as a living archive

Laboratorio Arte Alameda presents the activations "Trajectories" and "Instants" from artist Said Dokins' Bio_res_crituras project, a bioart exploration that activates microorganisms as scriptural agents to rethink the human body as a living archive. The activities will take place on August 16 and 30 in the 'Intermittent Dome', an urban observation capsule installed in Alameda Central in front of the museum. This project results from the collaboration between LAA-INBAL and the Art Science and Technology Laboratory of Tecnológico de Monterrey campus Querétaro.

The activations include urban drifts toward Bellas Artes and the Monument to the Revolution, where participants will collect samples of their epithelial microbiota to contribute to the living installation in the museum's display cases.

Said Dokins Bio-Res_Crituras, exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Laboratorio Arte Alameda. Photo: Leonardo Luna

Bio_res_crituras

Said Dokins' Bio_res_crituras project draws from the scientific concept of 'holobiont', defined by Lynn Margulis as the ecological unit formed by a host organism and its associated microbiota, to question Cartesian notions of bodily individuality. Dokins develops a 'bio-writing' practice that employs microorganisms as writing agents, establishing a dialogue between traditional calligraphy and microbiological processes. "This hybrid methodology operates from the temporality of cultures themselves (growth, reproduction, death and decomposition) to propose a distributive ontology that transcends anthropocentrism," comments Dokins. 'I like to think of the body as a porous and exchangeable surface, where each trace we leave is an invisible cartography of the space we inhabit and a writing that simultaneously inhabits us... that's what Bio_res_crituras is about.' He stated.

Said Dokins Bio-Res_Crituras, exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Laboratorio Arte Alameda. Photo: Leonardo Luna

The "Trajectories" exercise, scheduled for August 16, invites participants to join a collective mapping that uses the intermittent dome as a work center for biological sample collection. Participants will undertake urban drifts coordinated by the LAA mediation team, recording the microbiota of their daily routes through fingerprints on nutritive agar. The activity documents specific environmental microbial ecosystems from participants' urban routes, revealing invisible cartographies of inhabited space. In "Instants," the second activation scheduled for August 30, captures a unique moment of the body in public space through a skin imprint on culture media. These symbolic actions generate records of visitors' epithelial microbiota, creating a temporal archive of urban bodily presences that will be exhibited as a living installation in the museum's display cases. The samples will grow during controlled periods, accompanied by visual records created by Said Dokins and Leonardo Luna using macro and microphotography techniques, focus stacking and timelapse under the sound design of New Creatures.

Said Dokins Bio-Res_Crituras, exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Laboratorio Arte Alameda. Photo: Leonardo Luna

This collaboration with Tecnológico de Monterrey presented at Laboratorio Arte Alameda will expand during the exhibition with bio-writing exercises, bio-stencils and genetic engineering processes, representing a transdisciplinary work model that connects scientific research, artistic experimentation and critical reflection on biotechnology. Doctors Carmen González, Paola Angulo and Aurea Ramírez, along with M.Sc. Nayeli Ramírez Martínez, provided the microbiological protocols that allow Dokins to employ bacteria such as Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Lactobacillus spp. as scriptural agents in XLD, EMB and SB media, generating chromatic contrasts through specific biochemical reactions.

Said Dokins Bio-Res_Crituras, exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Laboratorio Arte Alameda

The Intermittent Dome will remain open during both sessions as an urban observation capsule, projecting documentation of previous experiments conducted in the Bioengineering laboratory of Tecnológico de Monterrey campus Querétaro. The activations will take place at 11, 13 and 16 hours with limited capacity of 20 participants per time slot. Entry is free and the meeting point will be the Atrium of Laboratorio Arte Alameda, located at Dr. Mora 7, Centro neighborhood, Mexico City.

Said Dokins Bio-Res_Crituras, exhibition Said Dokins: Inscriptions. Laboratorio Arte Alameda. Photo Leonardo Luna