GERM

Metabolism accounts for the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions that occur within an organism. The metabolism of a body, however, is necessarily connected to the metabolism of the planet and its circulation of energy, resources, and capital. All of us carry within us the chemical pollution resulting from global dependence on fossil fuels. Similarly, the shifted microbial communities of the Western diet are increasingly visible in the bodies and metabolic processes of people around the world.

I conducted biomonitoring and microbiome testing on my body in order to produce a book of poetry, Anatomic11Adam Dickinson, Anatomic (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2018). that reframes the body (my body) as a being overwritten by toxic chemicals yet constantly subject (in necessary ways) to the biosemiotic interference of other microbial life forms. As part of this work, I swabbed bacteria from my body and from selected surfaces and cultured it on top of various texts in order to generate poems that involve microbes in the writing process.

Court (top) involves a quotation from Cortes’ second letter to Charles V describing his meeting with Moctezuma in Mexico on 8 November 1519. It is colonized with bacteria that I swabbed from money and swabbed from my hands after touching money. The crowd of microbes, the result of the interaction between bodies and systems of exploitation and exchange, has been invited here to participate in the creation of an erasure text.

Scratch (bottom) presents a list of colloquial synonyms for money. This text is colonized by bacteria swabbed from money. Phthalates, a class of endocrine disrupting chemicals (hormone mimics) common on receipts and often transferred to the surfaces of banknotes while being collected in wallets, are present but not visible.