Agnes_Meyer-Brandis - Microfluidic Chip Oracle & Autopoesis Answering Machine

Microfluid Oracle Chip & Autopoesis Answering Machine (MOC&AAM)
a microfluidic machinery and installation by Agnes Meyer-Brandis, 2018-ongoing

The Microfluid Oracle Chip and Autopoesis Answering Machine (MOC&AAM) is a very small drawing and cybernetic agent, that can only be observed with the help of a microscope. It is an oracle driven by tiny droplets that run through the handwritten text like blood through a vain or sap through a plant.

After finishing my time at the MPI I asked the scientist I met for questions. Questions that pop up from day to day, within a scientist’s work life or their research. The only requirement was that they could be answered with „yes“ or „no“. The Microfluid Oracle Chip & Autopoesis Answering Machine is built out of those questions and hopefully will be able to answer them by the means of biotechnology, microfluids and autopoesis.
Each question can be looked at as an experiment of its own that will be answered by numerous droplets, literally flowing through the question itself. Each answer will lead the oracle machine to the next question, that then will be answered and lead to another one and so on until the chip renders itself useless.
What remains is a glimpse into a universe of questions that surface/appear in front of our telescopes and microscopes opposing a simple “yes” or “no”.

The exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn was realized with great support of:
Stiftung Kunstfonds
Naresh Yandrapalli and the Tom Robinson Lab at the Max Planck Institute Potsdam
Olympus -Life Science, Microscopy
Beethoven Stiftung Bonn

Many thanks to (in alphabetical order): Arren Bar-Even, Charles Cotton, Roland Knorr, Tom Robinson, Tina Seemann, Dirk van Swaay, Naresh Yandrapalli and thank you to all researchers unveiling their questions.

Sound: Michael Moser

Credits: "Microfluidic Chip Oracle & Autopoesis Answering Machine (MOC&AAM)" started in the scope of KLAS, Artist in Residence Project at the Max Planck Institute in Postdam Golm 2018.

Microfluidic Oracle Chip, detail © Agnes Meyer-Brandis, VG Bildkunst, 2019

Microfluidic Oracle Chip, exhibition view © Agnes Meyer-Brandis, VG Bildkunst, 2019

Microfluidic Oracle Chip, installation view kunstmuseum Bonn, 2019 (fig. top),
microscope views and chip details with handwritten question channels with a width of 20 µm / micrometres, hole size: 0.89mm (fig. down). ()

Microfluidic Oracle Chip, microscope view, detail with one chip © Agnes Meyer-Brandis, VG Bildkunst, 2019

Microfluidic Oracle Chip, microscope view, installation details © Agnes Meyer-Brandis, VG Bildkunst, 2019
Microfluidic Oracle Chip, exhibition view © Agnes Meyer-Brandis, VG Bildkunst, 2019

Microfluidic Oracle Chip, installation view, Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2019
Microfluidic Oracle Chip, microscope view, example question © Agnes Meyer-Brandis, VG Bildkunst, 2019

Installation views, Kunstmsueum Bonn, De, 2019

Microfluidic Oracle Chip, microscope view, installation details © Agnes Meyer-Brandis, VG Bildkunst, 2019
"A Universe of Questions", drawning and chip layout

Kunstmuseum Bonn installation view "Subsurdum Wall", wall montage with images, drawings and videos,
column titles: "Universes & Starrs // Minimal Cells // Synthetic Realities // Microfluidics and Machines // Oracles // Bubble Memories