GMU:DIY Bio: doing things with biology/Nyiko Johannes Mucavele/Colours of Rot

Rotting fruits

A primarily visual idea was to set some fruits in different layouts to rot and photograph the change for aesthetic purposes and colour work. In the brainstorming process Ethylene gas fruit interactions came to mind. Also perhaps checking the mental associations people have with rotting fruits and the instinct to avoid rotting food through colour and smell.

27.11.2018

Day 1 was acquiring an assortment of varying colours and textures in the form of fruits.

Each fruit had sections cut off and presented in varying ways on a petri-dish.

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These were left in an incubator for a week and then photographed with different cameras, lighting and magnifications. This resulted in 230+ photographs of the textures and colours of the fruits in question. One idea I had had was to try to make graphs to plot the RGB values of the changing colours for the rotting fruits and work forward from that but when ethylene gas interaction came up this idea lost traction.

I have used some photos for some drawing reference and sent to friends and family to see what they thought. A fellow visual artist and friend enjoyed seeing some of the textures that manifested with the fruits drying and rotting as we had done some visually similar things before, but I have yet to find something of substance to do with these images.