RCA  Research  2008  Biotechnology  City  My City = My Body  project  Selected Work   

Only a small amount of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals we swallow are taken up in our bloodstream, most of them pass through our bodies into the city's wastewater. Since wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove pharmaceuticals, the contents of our medicine cabinets eventually end up in the drinking water. This results in local differences in tap water, based on the food we eat and the drugs we take.

I branded tap water from three different areas: Notting Hill tapwater benefits from the highest density of organic shops, tapwater in the city of London is enhanced with various stimulants and Golders Green 'produces' a very fertile water due to the low concentration of people taking anti-conception pills.

This branded tap water was then sold on a sunny Saturday morning on Broadway market and people were asked to also put their tap water on the map, speculating it's special qualities. On the project website, people also added stories about their tap water to the map. The result is a new map of London, revealing potential local city-body ecologies or biotopes.

This is part of the 'My City = My Body' project, a design research project on how the rise of bio-technologies might influence our future interaction with the city. In this part, I created a series of public interventions to critically engage the audience in a future scenario, balancing fiction and reality.

download the big map (A0)
visit the project website on www.londonbiotopes.com


Filling bottles in Golders Green

Filling bottles in the CityFilling bottles in the CityPeople's stories on the marketSelling tap water on the market London Biotopes at the RCA show