Why film and microbes?

Over time, film is subject to microbial corrosion. It can degrade to the point where images become incomplete or abstracted. I am not the first to dig a hole in a garden and plant film for the sake of art (see this old blog post that I wrote), though perhaps I am for art and science (but science critics, please excuse the lack of replication in these artistic experiments). Though we are beginning to appreciate the role of microbes in our lives, it is easy to forget about what we can't see. Film corrosion is a reminder: visible proof of a process caused by seemingly invisible creatures. 

Common Garden Experimentation *
Digital Photographs, 35mm film
Represented on the film are archetypes of natural beauty (e.g. landscapes, landscape paintings, flowers). Film was buried for 2 weeks in soil before being cleaned and photographed. 

* In ecology, a common garden experiment is an experiment in which organisms from different environments are moved into a common one, and/or transplanted into each others' environments to control for many variables that would otherwise be in the experiment (e.g. temperature or soil differences). 

---

Density-Dependent* Corrosion 
Digital Photographs, 120 film
Working with the hypothesis that microbe density is correlated with soil volume, and film corrosion will occur accordingly, film exposed to different amounts of soil for the same amount of time. 

{photographs coming soon}
* In ecology, density-dependent processes occur when the growth of a population is dependent upon the density of the population. This dependency can be negative or positive. 

projects in progress:
Ecosystem Engineering*
Community Composition*