Kombucha is a drink made by adding symbiotic cultures (biofilms) of bacteria and yeast (scobys) to sweetened tea. The bacteria and yeast ferment the sugar in the sweetened tea, turning it into lactic acid. In this process the zesty taste which is particular for fermented drinks such as kombucha is created. When the kombucha has fermented, it is bottled, with the anaerobic condition causing pressure to build, and the drink to become carbonated.
Fermenting beverages can be traced back to prehistoric times. In ancient times soda was a rich source probiotics. The word probiotic combines the latin word pro, for, with the greek word bios, meaning life. Probiotic means pro-life, and kombucha is filled with living microorganisms, bacteria ready to become co-inhabitants of the human body. These bacteria become part of us, while at the same time remaining intruders.
Every time a new batch of kombucha ferments, the scoby "mother" produces an "offspring", effectively doubling itself. I instructed the gallery to continue brewing kombucha during the exhibition, serving it to visitors. Each new scoby were to be stored in transparent cases placed in a mini fridge. The stored organisms are cryogenized, placed in bio storage. Here the bacteria lay dormant, until they are allowed to return to their life cycles again. The bacteria depend on us to be brought back from cryogenesis, but over the course of evolution we have become dependent on them as well.
In Philosophy and Simulation, Manuel De Landa writes that bacteria, while deceptively simple, have discovered "all the biochemical processes of energy extraction that exist today" (De Landa 2011:65). The primordial soup of bacterial life discovered fermentation, photosynthesis and respiration. By the time animals arose in the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago, bacteria had colonized every exploitable niche on earth (Velasquez-Manoff 2012: 167) According to symbiogenetic theory bacterial relations are the drivers of the formation of evolutionary complexity, with multicellular life resulting from one amoeba-like cell being devoured or invaded by a bacteria (Kozo-Polyansky 1924/2010).
The symbiotic relationships are central for complex life forms, from the proto-animal sponges with tissue's hosting bacteria, to termites unable to digest bacteria without protozoa, and grazing animals with microbial communities fermenting in their guts (Velasquez-Manoff 2012:167) Stanford microbiologist Justin Sonnenburg makes the claim that humans should be regarded as "elaborate vessels optimized for the growth and spread of our microbial inhabitants" (ibid). While humans are currently envisioning the creation of artificial intelligence, bacteria may have already generated us for their propagation and sustainment.
The bacteria change our genome and our mood, in order to thrive inside their creations. Some of the mechanisms that maintain them have become hijacked, and as the bacterial colonies die, our health deteriorates. The diseases of civilization show our need to return to ways of living that are pro-bios. We need to de-sanitize our environments and reinvigorate our food and drinks. The biofilms can be de-cryogenized, taken out of storage so the bacteria can again reinfuse our bodies.
Sources:
De Landa, Manuel (2011): Philosophy and Simulation: The Emergence of Synthetic Reason. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Kozo-Polyansky, Boris Mikhaylovich(1924/2010) Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution, trans. Victor Fet, ed. Victor Fet and Lynn Margulis, Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Velasquez-Manoff, Moizes (2012): An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Looking at Allergies and Autoimmune Illness. New York: Scribner.
