the body electric + crystal transmission

Recently, I was lent a book which has brought my entire project together for me: The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life (Robert Becker, MD and Gary Selden), 1985. It's an older, now fairly obscure text, which you can download in its entirety as a PDF by clicking the hyperlink above. This book not only addresses hydroxyapatite crystal formation in osteogenesis but also the function of electrical impulses which are conducted by the crystals, in the process of bone formation. FASCINATING stuff, and it's hard to believe that it has seemingly fallen out of collective memory as a significant work, since it is an early text on tissue engineering as far as I can tell - specifically tissue regeneration and healing, or regrowing tissue and in particular, bone. It gets much deeper, too - in the next post, I'll summarize the relevant parts and explain how this brings my project together in a way I didn't anticipate.

I get ahead of myself. As I develop more and more intuitive techniques around how I think I can construct a 'fake' bone (mock ossification) through my artistic creative process, I find more and more medical and scholarly research that informs me that these are actually the components of the biological processes I'm trying to mimic! For me, process is generative and informative, not the other way around (e.g. theory first). This organic process is one that many artists follow - the practice informs the research first, and then the bibliographical research circles back to further inform the practice. This is my baseline understanding of what we call "research-creation" and artistic ingenuity. I'll explain some of my random discoveries in a minute.

I need to first share the basic crystal growing and polyhedron construction work I've been doing as part of my project. The crystal growing is something I've been doing on my own, experimenting so far with copper sulfate, borax, epsom salts and monosodium glutamate. The polyhedron construction is something that I've recruited both a collaborator and a technician to help me with. My collaborator is a fellow grad student in Applied Mathematics here at Concordia named Alexandra Lemus Rodriguez. Alexandra is working to help me figure out the dihedral angles (interior angles) of the various geometric forms I'm constructing. The drawing to the left is a drawing of a triangular dipyramid I did, incorporating the dihedral angles that Alexandra calculated for me (you can click to enlarge the drawing). 

Geometric form of a hydroxyapatite crystal.

I'm designing at least six geometric crystalline forms and constructing them out of 3mm thick plexiglass. So far, I have the triangular dipyramid almost completely constructed and will begin working on a square trapezohedron next. The reason I need to calculate the dihedral angles, which are the interior angles between each plane, is because I then need to divide those angles in half in order to determine the exact angle of the bevel I need to cut the edges of the plexi at, in order to properly fit the planes all together to make the form.

My technical help in cutting the angles comes from a fantastic man named Antoliano Nieto who works here at Concordia in the prototyping lab (where they do all sorts of amazing things, including vacuum packaging and various kinds of 3-D printing, but I'll elaborate on that later as it relates to my project). Tony (as he is called) is a sweetheart, an artist in his own right and a genius problem-solver with constructing forms. So, I take Alexandra's angles to Tony and work with him to cut the shapes on a CNC (computer numerical control) machine and then bevel all the edges on a table saw according to spec. Then we join the bevels (which form the seams) with a solvent that melts the pieces together permanently. Voila - we have a plexi form. I'm not going to post any photos of my form until it's completely assembled.

I've also been laser etching pattern onto the interior planes of the plexi forms to make it more interesting. So far, my patterns are derived from a knit pattern called fish bone, which I've altered in Photoshop. 

The original fish bone knit pattern swatch.

My adaptations of the pattern, which resemble a cellular structure (above and below). These are the exact patterns I used for etching into the plexi for the top and bottom sections of the triangular dipyramid.

Here is a test example of the laser etching:

These plexi forms are to be the reliquaries/incubators for the mock ossified objects I'm creating with hog gut and mineral crystals. I will explain the reliquary/incubator aspect in a later post, and what I plan to do with them. In the meantime, here are some of my crystal growths on gut so far:

Epsom salts crystals on knit hog gut. Note that the top of the structure is white while the crystals appear like clear quartz points. When epsom crystals are exposed to air long enough, they turn white. All of the crystals on this piece will turn milky white after left out to dry for a few days.

Also an epsom salts solution on corked gut, but this gut was put into the solution wet. The results? All of the corked gut that sits above the water is hardened into a solid crystal form, yet still appears wet and smooth. Parts of it have begun to whiten.

This is a really overexposed photo but you can still see and understand the crystal growth. This is copper sulfate on woven gut, which was dried before putting it in the copper solution. Copper sulfate definitely makes the most beautiful crystals.

Another badly exposed photo but this is the same sculpture from a different angle.

Borax crystals growing on loosely knit gut, which was dried before being put in the solution. However, borax softened the gut back to its original wet state (the other solutions did not do this). I discovered that the reason for this is that when borax is mixed with water, some of its molecules convert water to hydrogen peroxide (H202).

None of the above crystal growths are yet complete - all are in process, except for maybe the copper sulfate one. My next experiments will be with mixing different types of growth together. For example, I may put the copper sulfate crystal into a borax solution and see what happens. I've just randomly chosen minerals to work with, without any previous research into what relationship they may have to bone. I wanted to try everything I could to see what different types of crystals I could grow. I ended with borax. However, after doing some more research tonight, I discovered that borax is very much linked to bone growth, formation and health. Boron, which is the mineral element in borax, is necessary in the body for regulating calcium absorption. A deficiency in boron leads to osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and even fibromyalgia. Taking borax or boron capsules can be used in the treatment of these conditions. WHO KNEW? Not me, but now we all do. I have more sources for this information other than the US National Library of Medicine but they are less reputable so I won't include them here. Further to all this, borax/boron is linked to estrogen/testosterone levels and thyroid function, correlating bone health to hormonal balance. I don't want to go on too much about this because I'm not giving medical advice and I'm not a medical doctor - I'm making no claims here beyond what is useful for my bio-art research and practice. I'm just pointing to the fact that borax is directly linked to maintaining or building the structure of bone in the body, which is my research interest. Perhaps one day I'll win a Nobel Prize for curing osteo-conditions with my art and tissue engineering projects, but until then...

... this research could fall within the context of transhumanism for its fantastical potential to somehow extend or enhance human life. For now, it's a research-creation project. In the next post, I'll follow up with more thoughts on this as well as how The Body Electric fits in with what I'm doing (the electronic aspect I haven't mentioned yet) and finishes the concept nicely.

VectorWorks is the program we use to design for the CNC machine. This shows a visual, geometrical way of calculating dihedral angles.

Biomimesis ossificans

The mock ossification process/objects that I'm creating are a form of biomimesis.
Biomimecry can be defined as: "the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems." What complex human problems I'm trying to solve at this point is unclear, but that's typical of any creative process: leaping into the unknown. I'm comfortable with that.

I've been collecting images of bone structure, including diseased bone and deteriorating bone. With disease/deformity, the biological system that generates a working structure goes awry. As an artist with a strong technical background in textiles (material structures), this is extremely relevant to my work and research now in tissue engineering.

Bone cancer specimen. You can see what appears to be a crystalline structure growing outward.

Skeleton showing muscle and ligaments turned to bone.

Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva is a disease where the body thinks it's "healing" normal fibrous tissues by turning them into bone. Here's what one website says: "...your whole body is slowly being petrified, as you excruciatingly transform into a creature formed of bone. Except, it’s bone without the smooth and mobile joints of the normal skeleton, so it’s like having a body filled with twigs that scrape and hinder every moment. Why not just cut off the growths? That causes the repair system to kick into overdrive, converting more of the body into bone and faster. There’s no known treatment for the 450 sufferers worldwide, and in one famous case a sufferer survived up to the age 40, at which point his entire body except his lips transformed into bone, leaving him completely immobile." This is a fascinating and horrific system breakdown. A miscommunication of the body creating too much structure, if you will. Structural overload.
 

Normal bone (left)/ Osteoporosis (right)

Osteoporosis is when bone begins to structurally break down, leaving huge gaps between the fibres that hold the bone together. It's like a piece of lace that slowly has threads cut here and there until the lace falls apart. 

Bone is extremely structure-based. I'm creating gut structures that might provide a window into a new matrix for bone growth. This is the first step of my mock ossification. Who knows how this might be helpful in some way in the future, once I get into a lab and do this for reals? I'm also planning to experiment with breaking those structures down to see what other biomimicry I can play with.

I'm deeply compelled by the intelligence of bone to grow and to repair itself, as well as the malfunction of that intelligence system. Oron Catts informed me during the tissue engineering workshop that bone cells have a high level of intelligence, possibly even more than brain cells. It is this type of intelligence, body intelligence that I'm fascinated with as a fibre artist. We can also call this haptic intelligence, haptic being the word for the sense of touch, contact between membranes. This speaks to the idea of cultural contact, whether that be cell cultures or human culture and the role of empathy. Emotional intelligence. My interest in the intelligence of the body and its senses is what drives this research. Also, the way that this innate and perhaps subconscious (automatic?) intelligence manifests itself in our conscious lives, such as through common linguistic terms/expressions. I love the secret truths we tell ourselves all the time, without even realizing it. We think, remember, feel and act from a cellular level (in our bones) and possibly do have all of the answers.

Some more of my gut structures so far (two posts ago I published images of the first knit gut that I made - these followed):
 

Corked gut.

Tapestry-woven (2/2 twill) gut.

Loosely knit gut that I shaped into a scapula form (close to human-scale).

The scapula form still drying.

Dried scapula form.

In the next post, I'll really get into and post many photos of my work with crystal growing and building polyhedrons (crystalline geometric forms). This will lead to a larger explanation of my project so far. The components of all of this studio work are:

1. Mock Ossification

1. Polyhedron Reliquaries/Incubators

1. Disembodied Pilgrimages

1. Meta-enculturation

So far, I've partially explained mock ossification. The results so far are quite stunning, I think. Stay tuned for those very yummy photos.