Ash Tower is an Adelaide-based artist and writer. Working primarily in installation and web-based works, his practice addresses standardised modes of knowledge such as science and scientific classification.

Ash is also a Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Australia, where he is undertaking research on how the laboratory environment influences artistic production.

Research Project:

During a 3-month residency Ash explored potentials for future projects. He began with an interest in culturing calcite-precipitating bacteria that would produce calcite to reinforce its container. This was intended to foster a symbiotic relationship between the culture that excreted calcite, and the container that protected it.

Later in the residency, Ash began to culture human cancer cells, observing their need to ‘adhere’ to the base of their flask. This in turn provoked an interest in what kind of surface conditions adherent cells could be grown on. Interested in the technical challenge that had emerged through experience tissue culture ‘hands on’, Ash began to investigate the possibilities of using embedded nanoparticles to culture cells levitating on magnetic fields.