LAURA OLALDE

I’m a visual artist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina where I live and work. I graduated in Fine Arts, in the specialization of painting. In 2016 I got a Masters Degree in Electronic Arts and my Tesis research was based on sci-art coproduction.

Since 2011, I’m involved with bioart practices. In 2012, I exhibited Quorum Sensing in Fundación Telefónica, Argentina. It consisted of an interactive immersive experience with bioluminescent microorganisms (vibrio fischeri), as a result of the research and development of the project during Interactivos’11.

In 2012 I received a production grant as mentor of my project Ophiodea, inspired by compound eyes in nature. It was exhibited at Ljudmila Medialab, Ljubljana, Slovenia, during the “Interactivos’12” workshop, organized by Medialab Prado, the Swiss Mechatronics art Society and Ljudmila Medialab.

Since 2013, I’m part of PROTEUS, a sci-art collective formed with molecular biologists and social scientists, awarded in 2015 for the installation Introversión Dogmática, a representation of the interaction between DNA and Histone proteins.

In October 2016, I participated as artist in residence in the City of Women Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as mentor of a public work called Mitochondrial wall. During my residence, I also collaborated with iGEM Slovenia Team, (leaded by Roman Jerala from the National Institute of Chemistry of Slovenia) in the visualization of their project Sonicell that was awarded in the iGEM Giant Jamboree, celebrated in Boston, MA in the same year. During my residence, it was planned to exhibit E.painting at RampaLab, Galerija Kapelica, in Ljubljana, but it was not possible because of restricted regulations about releasing modified bacteria out of the labs. Instead, I was invited to RampaLab Science Café Sessions to give a talk called Sci-art & coproduction, that included a skype to Buenos Aires with one of the members of PROTEUS.

During 2017 I got involved with GOSH, the Gathering for the open science hardware and I was invited to attend the Global Community BioSummit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, in Boston. These two events strengthened my dialogueand collaboration with other artists, designers, and scientists involved with Open Science, Bioart and BioDesign and since then I assume as a challenge the interdisciplinary practice as well as the use of open technologies in the development of my artistic research. Kombucha Genomics is an expression of this challenge.