Shining a Light on the Gâteau Vivant – Structural Colour, Art, Perception, Capital and the Flavobacteria Presented as a Gift

This paper revolves around the Gâteau Vivant artwork, offering a wide perspective into its workings that allow for a complex set of relations to surface; into the histories and circumstances surrounding this work and its material basis. The artwork is created in the form of a cake, presented as a series of cakes, covered with cloches. The cake is made of an agar growth medium coloured black with nigrosin dye and introduced with Flavobacterium Iridescent 1 (IR1) strand that under the created conditions has a lifespan of several days. During that time, a living structural colour produced by bacterial colonies can be witnessed. The aesthetic choices made by the authors, presenting organic matter shaped in a cake form and encased with glass domes, familiar from cake shops, are visual references to a culture with a long history of celebrations and gift-giving. However, beyond the beautiful surface qualities, these wobbly jelly cakes with the smell of life and rot reveal an unsettling reality, pointing our attention towards the commercialisation and instrumentalisation of life. The Gâteau Vivant artwork functions as a central focus for the authors’ exploration of non-human organisms’ lifecycles and their recently developed relation to human society and also to its economic demands. The Gâteau Vivant presents the obvious; we, humans, have isolated the bacteria from its original habitat and are experimenting with it for our own benefit – often with legitimation from science, technology, as well as the art sector.