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Oct 13

Upcoming Talk on Biohacking

For anyone in Montreal on Nov 1 I’ll be giving a talk at Concordia University. Tagny Duff has been kind enough to invite me to present at Fluxmedia.

Dr. Andrew Pelling, University of Ottawa: “Bio-hacking and Manipulating the Living World”
November 1, 2011
5:30-7:30 pm
EV 11.705  Concordia University
1515 St. Catherine Street W

In this talk I will discuss my recent collaborations occurring at the interface of art and science as well as bio-hacking activities taking place in the Pelling Lab for Biophysical Manipulation. I will present “The Dark Side of the Cell” and other works in collaboration with media artist Anne Niemetz which explore the science of cellular sounds and the conversion of scientific database information into audible and visual format. I will also present Darkfields, in collaboration with sound artist Donna Legault, which explores the interaction of living cells with local pressure waves generated by infrasonic frequencies. Finally, I will present work from The Pelling Lab which comprises a group of multi-disciplinary scientists and engineers focused on the manipulation of life with artificial stimuli and microenvironments. I will present our manipulations of various magnitudes, including the culture of living cells onto bio-INcompatible substrates with no relationship to any natural micro-environment, the growing of human-jellyfish hybrid ‘skins’ onto LEGO mini-figures, and ‘bio-hacking’ (the re-purposing/re-culturing of tissues and organs for non-biological means). The Pelling Lab is a curiosity driven environment generally interested in finding the limits of normal biological function and pushing beyond them to create something new.


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Decellularization organs bioart artsci

Sep 28

Open Ottawa

So I just finished two installations at the Open Ottawa Libre thing thats going on today.

The first, “Darkfields” is a new collaboration between myself and sound artist Donna Legault:


This interactive peice is not so much an ‘artwork’ but rather the promise of a much longer term project we have started. But this is a nice example of what happens if you put two people from very different backgrounds in a room and see what happens. We literally met 2 weeks ago and spent a couple of afternoons in my lab discussing our individual interests in infrasonics and whatever it is I do.

The second, “Organ Re-Purposing Bioreactors” was a live bioreactor setup which my student, Daniel Modulevsky, and I produced. This put on display, in graphic detail, a major tool of the modern biohacker. Its also something any DIY-Bio person would be able to accomplish with some soap, a few magnets and some hacked motors.

These installs were briefly mentioned in the latest issue of Guerilla at the end of an article on Andrew O’Mally.


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organs Decellularization

Sep 28

was steak

We recently decellularized a large piece of steak as a proof of principle. There are plenty of regions of the steak which have the potential of being re-purposed and we currently working on that.

A nice surprise is the fact that some of the vasculature is still in place. This opens the possibility of using it down the road.


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organs Decellularization

Sep 22

Multiple Bioreactor Setup

Dan and I have almost perfected a multi-bioreactor setup now and have had much success decellularizing discarded meat and organs. See below. More on this soon, we will be installing two of these for the City of Ottawa next week as a part of Open Ottawa Libre. I’ll also be collaborating with sound artist Donna Legault on a new project attempting to visualize sound.


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Decellularization organs

Sep 10

Heart before and after

A fresh heart:

After decellularization:



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