RCA  Research  2008  Biotechnology  City  My City = My Body  project   

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.

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

RCA  Research  2008  Biotechnology  City  My City = My Body  project   

Urban Biogeography is the study of the distribution of urban biodiversity over space and time. One of the techniques often used by Urban Biogeographers is "sewage monitoring". This tool allows the Urban Biogeographer to pump up a tiny amount of sewage into the little bottles and scan it for different pharmaceutical and chemical traces, all without even having to lift a manhole cover.

Using synthetic biology*, bacteria are programmed to change colour when detecting oestrogen, anti-biotics, viagra or prozac. Since synthetic biology is both open source and modular, this tool can be redesigned to detect other chemicals by any Urban Biogeography enthusiast, both professional and amateur.
Many thanks to James Chappell and Vincent Rouilly at Imperial college for the bioengineering and introducing me to the wonderful world of Synthetic Biology.

RCA  Research  2008  Biotechnology  City  My City = My Body  project   

Frank Derryl produces special cells in his body. He inherited this from his father, who mysteriously disappeared after his refusal to cooperate with a big pharmaceutical corporation. When Frank finds out about his special powers, he decides to use them and becomes AntiBodyMan.
Dressed in a suit and mask that help him harvest the antibodies he produces, AntiBodyMan moves around the city to fight the engineered viruses, dna stealing parasites and other pandemics produced by his enemies.

Superheroes reflect on our interaction with the city and embody society's dreams and fears about technologies. This project explores how the technologies emerging out of laboratories today might shape the superheroes of tomorrow.

A big fan of AntiBodyMan, Isaac hardly takes his costume off, even when he goes to the supermarket.
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Thanks to Jamie Tiller for the photographs and Bali Engel for the illustrations.
Download the comic here

RCA  Research  2008  Biotechnology  City  My City = My Body  project   

My City = My Body is part of ongoing research into future biological interactions with the city. The increasing understanding of our DNA and the rise of bio-technologies will fundamentally change the way we interact with each other and our environment. Today, DNA is a tool for identification, you can have your DNA analysed over the internet and we are creating new types of bacteria by reprogramming its DNA. But what does this mean for tomorrow? Will we have DNA-surveillance and discrimination? Bio-identities and communities? And what will our new interactions look and feel like?
In search for these new biological interactions with the city, I started looking into Thames Water, London's largest 'drinking water and wastewater service company'. Making use of the Design Interactions work-in-progress-show, I staged an intervention, creating a map of London which contains biological information. Offering tapwater (kindly provided by Thames Water) I have asked visitors to donate a urine sample and give me their postcode, extending my biological map of London. Collaboration or not, it was often in the questions or laughs afterwards that interesting reactions came up.