OVERFLOW

Marseille 17/08/2022

Beaches are closed due to E.coli contamination.
E. coli is a bacterium that inhabits the intestines of humans and other warm blooded animals. Its presence in the water is often the result of a recent faecal pollution.
The night before, a summer storm with heavy rains had caused the city’s wastewater to spill into the neighboring sea.
At 4:05 in the afternoon, I take a water sample from Les Catalans public beach and go back home.

N43 °17’29.674”E5 °21’19.919”

Next to a candle, I dip a cotton swab into the soiled water and rub the dark red agar plates gently in a zigzag pattern. 

I put the lid quickly back on to avoid contamination

It should take about two days for the colonies of germs to appear. 

Working in collaboration with bacteria means working at the resolution and scale of microscopic phenomena and waiting for them to become visible. My naked eye cannot see the individual microorganisms but it will perceive their activity, the indirect indicator of their presence.

The image is no longer a representation but a corollary.

Marseille 19/08/2022

The bacteria are actively growing so I remove them from the petri dish and inoculate them on a strip of 120mm colour film. It is made of gelatin as well. They start to slowly eat at it, creating shapes and colours through mechanical erosion and chemical corrosion. A cartography, drawing its own maps and territories. The interaction between a biological entity and photographic matter reveals the different agencies involved in making a visual. A hybrid image between diagnostic microbiology and landscape photography.

I look at it intensely, but am unable to crack its code.  

Tomorrow, I will scan it.

Recipe for homemade bacterial growth medium

• Beef stock
• Sugar
• Gelatin sheets or agar agar
• Salt (optional)
• Water
• Saucepan
• Clear containers

Boil 500 ml of water in a saucepan. Add 1 cube of beef stock, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a pinch of salt and stir until it dissolves. Add two Gelatin sheets to the solution and allow to dissolve. Pour hot gelatin solution into containers until they are 1/3 to 1/2 full. Cover to avoid contamination, and allow the gelatin to cool until solid. Refrigerate the plates upside down.Use within in 2-3 days. 

Beirut 24/10/2022

We have cholera now.
It first started up North, in Akkar, then quickly reached Beirut.
My friends are calling me in panic.
I dumbly forward them the info sheet from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Avoid eating out. Wash your hands. Disinfect the water with a chlorinated compound.
Protective measures.
When did the state protect us from anything?
In 1948, the Israeli government poisoned Palestinian wells with Salmonella typhi, the bacterium that causes typhoid fever. They had also planned to poison Beirut and Cairo’s water as well, but decided against it at the last minute.
I call the lab where I used to work and ask them how many water samples for cholera testing they received today.

Vibrio cholera loves water.

Estuary water mostly. 

It thrives very well in sewage.
It loves water and kills by draining it out of the body. A violent, unstoppable diarrhoea described as watery. It deprives the body of its essential salts. Sodium, potassium, and sugar. Death comes by dehydration and by the common mistake that water alone is sufficient to rehydrate, to hold the pressure and maintain the vital organs well perfused.

Recipe for oral rehydration solution

one liter of CLEAN water (either bottled water or recently boiled and cooled)

six teaspoons of sugar

half teaspoon of salt.

Stir well and drink.

Chalon-sur-Saône 27/10/2022

On my way to the museum, I meet the Saône.

A new river. A new body of water. 

I see it first in the morning light surrounded by an iridescent golden fog and make a mental note that I should wake up early more often.

Chalon-sur-Saône 28/10/2022

The work schedule is strange.

It is mandatory to leave the premises for two hours each day. 

I spend them eating an apple as slowly as I can, looking at the river but not too close.

Chalon-sur-Saône 05/11/2022

It’s 5 p.m. when I exit the museum. It’s already dark and the river is lit with strange pink neon lights. I wonder what invisible life strives there. I fill up a small bottle and go back home.

Chalon-sur-Saône 10/11/2022

In one of the museum’s collection rooms there is a metal drawer with a toxicity warning sign.

It is where the damaged nitrate negatives are kept before they are picked up by a certified waste disposal company.

These types of film are extremely unstable when they deteriorate. As the image melts into a gooey paste of toxic acids and gas, everything in its vicinity can become contaminated and so highly flammable it can self-combust.

I already knew that from the Beirut’s port explosion. 

I will spend the next two weeks, gloved, masked, and dizzy from all the toxic smells. I will digitise 61 negatives stuck in archive limbo, invert them into one last positive trace image and save it as NITRATE001-061.

Chalon-sur-Saône 17/11/2022

Sometimes it is so cold I cannot remove my coat while working.

This winter, the heating has become scarce and the electricity cuts more frequent.

The room reeks of the nitrous gas’ putrid smells. A mix of garbage, camphor, chlorine, and candy. My headaches are growing stronger. I learn by accident that the films I am restlessly scanning belong to the Combier collection.

And that each image corresponds to a specific location along the river.

Nitrate

Chemical formula NO⁻₃

Common component of fertilizers, explosives, films and nitrocellulose membrane used for water testing. Nitrate from fertilizers and wastewater treatment plans contaminate surface and groundwater .

Chalon-sur-Saône 19/11/2022

I want to go back to the river

and test it for nitrate.

In front of the museum, I go down the stone steps leading to the water.

And take a sample.

It is freezing, my hands are numb.

The colour turns a strong orange, mentally I invert it to a deep blue.    

R:       10

                                                                                                                      G:         2

                                                                                                                       B:    255

Colorimetric method for Nitrate water testing

Buy any commercial API nitrate test kit and follow its instructions:

Fill the test tube with the water sample to be tested.

Add 10 drops of reagent 1 and shake well to allow mixing of the solution.

Shake reagent 2 for 30 seconds then add 10 drops to the test tube and shake it for 60 seconds.

Wait 5 minutes for full color development then hold the test tube against provided color chart. 

The closest color match indicates nitrate concentration.