Oron Catts, Director of SymbioticA, Centre of Excellence in
Biological Arts at The University of Western Australia,
contributed to the Biorama 2 discussion with a presentation of
Adaptation, the project he and his team are currently working
on. Adaptation is radically different from what you would
expect. No victimless leather jacket, no banquet of frog steak.
This one invites us to take a peak into the broader issue of
ecology and life itself. Thrombolites are rock-like structures
built by micro-organisms. Often regarded as the earliest
geographical features of primitive life on Earth, they are in
fact bacteria which deposit layers of silt and calcium that
slowly grow into rounded rocks. Scientists believe these micro-
organisms are the earliest form of life on earth. Millions of
years ago, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere and no
protective ozone layer. According to researchers, this began
changing when the tiny organisms started to appear. They lived
in water and produced oxygen which gradually and very