by Eben Kirksey
Wolbachia bacteria are very abundant microbes that live inside the bodies of invertebrate animals. These promiscuous parasites live inside the cells of spiders, insects, mites, crustaceans, nematodes, and filarial worms. They tend
to be transmitted vertically, from “mothers” to “children,” rather than horizontally by infection. Classic biomedical textbooks contain tales about human sperm and eggs that naturalize patriarchal stereotypes about productive men and wasteful women. The Wolbachia literature refracts related tales through the microbe’s imagined point of view: “Because males are not transmitters, they are ‘waste’ from the perspective of the bacteria.” Maximizing their transmission across generations, Wolbachia adjust and transform the bodies and the reproductive dynamics of their invertebrate hosts. In some crustaceans and in at least one insect species, these bacteria perform a gender-bending trick. They can send a chemical signal that changes genetic males into reproductively viable females.
In San Francisco, The Multispecies Salon hosted Wolbachia bacteria inside the bodies of living fruit flies (Drosophila sp.). Vials with these insects and lively parasites were exhibited alongside pictures illustrating the presence of the bacteria inside the fly cells. The surface proteins of Wolbachia appear as red dots (see the left image above) while the genetic material of the fly and the parasitic bacteria glow blue (in the center). The glowing background of these images, the cytoskeleton of the fruit fly cell, was created by a different process—through transgenic manipulations. Genes for the green fluorescing protein (GFP) from a jellyfish were inserted into the DNA of the fruit fly to illuminate its cellular structure. In the composite image (on the right), the Wolbachia hover out side the light-blue nucleus of the fruit fly cell. The bacteria glow a purplish pink, interspersed among the chaotic green lines of the fly’s cytoskeleton. These images of Wolbachia were created with anti-rabbits, molecules that bring one down a proverbial rabbit hole into the Wonderland of immunochemistry.
Anti-Rabbit Art, a mixed media installation created for the 2010 Multispecies Salon exhibit in New Orleans, invites the mind’s eye to fixate on the micro-processes and oblique powers involved in creating spectacular images for bioscientific initiatives. Bringing together the grotesque and the beautiful, the twinned elements of Victor Hugo’s sublime, this piece illustrates unexpected multispecies entanglements. Faint traces of Wolbachia populate a dark background of cells, like a night sky filled with colorful stars, while a living rabbit invited gallery goers to ask critical questions.
Further Reading
Kirksey, Eben et al. “Life in the Age of Biotechnology” in The Multispecies Salon, pp. 189-196.
