Fermenting Electricity: Deep Dive into Bacteria-Generated Power

Join us for a workshop building mud batteries together with artist Sunjoo Lee for which Zone2Source collaborates with Fiber festival.

How can electricity emerge from the living world? In this hands-on workshop, artist and Reassemble resident Sunjoo Lee invites participants to explore the intersection of earth, life, and digital systems through the Microbial Fuel Cell – a technology that generates electricity from the metabolism of anaerobic bacteria living in mud.

Together, we’ll build mud cells step by step: crafting electrodes, foraging mud from a nearby pond, composing the cells, and planting aquatic plants in the topsoil. Throughout the process, Sunjoo will share insights from her ongoing research project Electric Garden, which explores the creative and technical possibilities of bacterial electricity as a living, relational system.

Once assembled, the mud cells will “brew” for two weeks, as bacteria settle and multiply, producing small yet vital currents. As we wait for these microbial communities to come alive, we’ll discuss how such slow, unstable energy challenges conventional ideas of power and efficiency – and what it means to imagine an electricity-generating garden.

This workshop is the first in a three-part series exploring microbial energy and regenerative computation. Future sessions will focus on crafting ceramic containers for the fuel cells and creating electronic systems that can use their electricity. Together, the series will culminate in a collectively built artwork that connects mud, microbes, and machines.

Is this workshop for me?

This workshop is for artists, designers, researchers, and the simply curious who want to explore the living interface between technology and ecology. No prior technical experience is needed – just an openness to getting your hands dirty (literally) and to rethinking what energy can be.

What will I gain from participating?

You’ll gain first-hand experience in building a microbial fuel cell, learning how living organisms can produce electricity through natural metabolic processes. Beyond the technical experiment, the workshop invites you to reflect on energy as a living, relational process – one that connects soil, microbes, plants, and digital systems.

Expect to leave with a deeper understanding of regenerative computation and inspiration for integrating ecological thinking into creative practice.

How to prepare

Bring curiosity, clothes you don’t mind getting muddy, and a willingness to experiment. All materials and tools will be provided. We’ll forage mud from a nearby pond, so dress comfortably for light outdoor activity.

If you’d like to read or explore in advance, we recommend looking into microbial fuel cells, permacomputing, and more-than-human design – but the workshop will guide you step by step.

About the artist

Sunjoo Lee is an interdisciplinary artist working across art, technology, and ecology, based between the Netherlands and South Korea. Her practice reimagines electronics beyond human-centered use, drawing from more-than-human philosophy, biomimicry, symbiosis, and permacomputing.
Collaborating with biologists, ecologists, and engineers, she creates installations that explore the interdependence of the biosphere and technosphere. Her ongoing project Electric Garden forms a living network of microbial fuel cells that ferment electricity, reframing energy production as an emergent relationship between soil, microbes, plants, and machines.

About FIBER

FIBER is an Amsterdam based organisation, dedicated to present and initiate artistic productions at the intersection of audiovisual art, digital culture and electronic music. The team works year round with a vibrant network of artists, designers, technologists, researchers and organisations to reflect on the influence of technology and realise immersive artistic experiences across many creative disciplines. Special attention goes out to the support of up- and coming makers by connecting them with shared knowledge, organisations, networks and audiences.

Price

Student: € 28
Professionals: € 42.50

If you would like to participate in this workshop but cannot afford it, please contact us and we will see if we can find a solution: maarten@fiber-space.nl. If you can afford it, please pay the indicated price. This way, others who do not have the means can still attend.

Register here.