Bacterioptica: Making Light of Microbes

written by Houke de Kwant on February 25, 2013

Bacterioptica, created by MadLab, is not your typical chandelier, just as no household is a typical portrait of family life. It is itself a household organism – living and breathing the same air and bacteria we are. It is alive in a very literal sense: it cultivates, distributes and illuminates the bacterial life of its family members by way of a branching assembly of metal rods, glass petri dishes and fiber optics. Bacterioptica is adaptive by design, not only in its form and mechanics, but more importantly, in the way it evolves.

Whether featuring bacteria from the skin, the yard or the dinner guests, Bacterioptica is continually changing in shape and luminosity. The chandelier’s construction is a modular assembly of many simple parts, with a capacity of over one hundred samples. Petri dishes in various sizes,
hundreds of metal rods, couplings, caps and canisters, and 15,000 feet of fiber optic cable all assemble into an intricate and rewritable tale of materials, bacteria and light. What do you think, something for above your table?