The E-Feed/er is a platform for interaction between humans and micro-life. With the help of a webcam and artificial intelligence, visitors can communicate non-verbally with the bacteria via human emotions. Human emotions are collected from (virtual) visitors by tracking their eyes and facial expressions. These are processed by machine vision, fed into the feeder and thus influence the microbial cultures; either growth is promoted or selected parts of the cultures are destroyed. Bacterial growth is made visible to the human eye by using indicators that trigger colour changes in areas colonized by microbes. The selected indicator substance X-gal colours the living cells blue, another, pure lactose, colours them red. The selected microbial species is Escherichia coli, an intestinal bacterium that can multiply every 20 minutes under favourable conditions and is valued for its robustness in laboratory environments.

E-feed/er: Daniela Mitterberger, Tiziano Derme, Damjan Minovski,
Scientific support: Martin Gasser( Artificial Intelligence), Andreas Heberlein ( Microbiology)