BIOTEHNA IS A BIOTECHNOLOGICAL LABORATORY THAT OPERATES WITHIN KERSNIKOVA INSTITUTE
BioTehna is aimed at artists, scientists and the general public who wish to artistically research living systems. The laboratory’s production is closely tied to the exhibition programme of the Kapelica Gallery, which co-founded BioTehna in 2013 together with Hackteria, the international community of biohackers. BioTehna is a member of the international movement of hackers and the DIY-bio community.
Exhibitions, workshops and lectures
organized within BioTehna are merely excuses to include all interested in the active and hands-on approach to DIY lab processes, hacking various living systems, connecting life cells and robots, learning from the extreme world of plants and animals, discovering extremely interesting technological tricks and encountering thousands of secrets that might quickly turn the world as we know it upside down.
Join us
and plunge into the whirl of events and let your curiosity and imagination run wild. Meet some of the most inspirational artists, researchers and techno freaks from all over the world. They challenge our perceptions of the world we live in by posing bold questions about the future.
The Kapelica gallery is a different gallery,
in which we present exhibitions that demand a focused visitor. We organize events that change the perception of art and encourage artists, scientists, engineers and other restless creative people to inspire each other and pass the time that keeps ticking away. We have established BioTehna within the frame of the Kapelica Gallery, and this enables us to offer better support to art projects which demand laboratory conditions. Working with living systems demands a different approach, a different gallery and a different way of presenting and understanding works of art.
Hackteria is an international community
of individuals and open source bio-art initiatives with its headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland. The Hackteria platform encourages scientists, hackers and artists to cooperate and share their knowledge. Apart from the webpage, which is turning out to be an important archive for people interested in DIY bio-art projects, open source software and experimenting with electronics, the Hackteria partners write critical and theoretical texts, share basic instructions and knowledge for working with technologies in the field of science and living systems and cooperate in the organization of workshops, festivals and meetings.
The Biotehna laboratory
is open to all who are interested in life science. The laboratory programme is determined annually in cooperation with the programme leaders of BioTehna and Kersnikova Institute. The laboratory is open to everybody who, once accepted into the programme, follow the rules of careful and economic use and respect the principles shared by the community that uses the laboratory.
The laboratory
Is equipped with working surfaces and running water. It has a laboratory refrigerator and freezer, an invert microscope and laminaria of the first safety level. The laboratory has a DIY incubator which is appropriate for breeding animal and plant cultures. BioTehna also has a selection of small laboratory equipment and the standard collection of disposable tools.