My city=My body

Tuur Van Balen is my age. He has already got a Master of Science in Industrial Design of Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology. Not happy with his (cum laude) thesis project for the National Dutch Museum in Amsterdam, he decided to go for another Master of Arts at the Royal College in London. His new project is called My City=My Body and just had an interim show at the RCA.

This "preview" is part of his "ongoing research into future biological interactions with the city and more precisely into how the increasing understanding of our DNA and the rise of bio-technologies will change the way we interact with each other and our environment". For this occasion, Van Balen decided to start exploring the city of London from its river. "The Thames is London's largest 'drinking water and wastewater service company", he says.
 

This installation/performance is an attempt to create a map of the city based on biological material found in the urine of its habitants. At the preview show at the RCA, the artist offered tap water (from the Thames) and asked the visitors to donate a sample of urine. Once the urine is tested and data is analyzed and displayed on a map,  social and economical relationships between the people and the environment are expected to be unveiled.
By gathering urine samples, he says "I want to make people think about how their biological waste contains information. Pissing in public might become like leaving your digital data up for grabs, spitting in the streets like leaving your computer unprotected on the internet".