Milky Ways (2022)

Video

07’10

4K

A project in collaboration with Primer

The film travels through an artificial gut (Simulator of Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem) that has been fed with human milk. It meditates on recent studies around sugars within the milk (Human Milk Oligosaccharides) that interact with gut bacteria and seem to have psychobiotic potential.

According to Milky Ways, our symbiotic microbial culture not only expands the limits of our consciousness, but also makes us interplanetary. The changing landscape of the breast-gut-brain axis is dotted with a galaxy of stars as well as streams of cell-cultured milk. Throughout the video, the history of biomimetics unfolds in flowforms and song that tunes into the environment.

Laboratory: Mani Arumugam’s Microbiome Systems Biology group at Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research in Copenhagen, as operated by Thiyagarajan Gnanasekaran and Qing Fang

Cinematography: Guston Sondin-Kung and Mikko Gaestel
Liquid projections: Steve Pavlovsky
Video editing: Mikko Gaestel
Voice: Jessica Edwards
Song: Arjopa
Sound engineering: Tim Roth

Thank you: Adam Bencard, Fie Hillesø, Mandus Ridefelt, Vanda Skácalová, and Elvia Wilk

Inspiration from ‘hypersea’, as described by Dianna and Mark McMenamin and ‘matrixial’, as described by Bracha L. Ettinger.