Nicholas Mittman, Interdisciplinary Sculpture, 2027
Interdisciplinary Sculpture major at MICA. Originally transferred from Harford Community College; Nicholas enjoys working with mediums such as Charcoal, pen & ink, and wood to create pieces that depict the themes of horror. His fascination to explore the unconventional side of art has led to him expanding his practice with biomaterial as a new medium.
Project Overview
I wanted to make a set of dice that was made out of agar and use the E.coli as the numbers. I also had extra agar left over and I didn’t want to waste any so I drew a skull on it.
Process
First I started with some drawings and different colors before I decided to make dice for my project. I ordered a dice making kit and in order for the agar to retain chape of the dice I needed to strengthen the agar. First I used agar that was 2x stronger however when I popped them out of the mold they crumbled instantly. For my second attempt I used agar that was 5x stronger than the normal and instead of popping them out of them mold I used a scalpel and “surgically removed” them by cutting the mold up. I was way too scared to pop them out because I was working on crunch time. I also didn’t intend to use UV reactive E.coli, however I grabbed the wrong tube and got that as a result. It came out fine so I’m not complaining. I then had leftover 5x agar and I didn’t want to waste it so instead I drew on a new template and as you can see the E.coli grew pretty well.
Learn More
nmittman_art on Instagram