Verena Friedrich's presentation was divided in two parts: providing a contextual background of her work - Cellular Performance (2011 - ) - and the second, the process and its progress.
As a starting point, Verena looked at the misappropriated advertising language of cosmetic products (i.e. Juvena) by collecting from the range of terms (i.e."Chroma-Lift", "Pore Minimizer") used to entice its customers. These terms, though seductive, seem to have little to do with their actual effect on the skin.
During her residencies at SymbioticA and Laboratories of Stem Cell Bioengineering in 2011 and 2012, she developed Cellular Performance by shaping human skin cells into readable texts through a series of methods involving tissue culture, microfabrication, and patterning techniques to manipulate the cell's movements and thus inscribe words.
Imaging methods (fluorescence microscopy) were used for visual outputs of its development.
By utillising timelapse to capture cells movement over time, the inscribed word (pattern) become visible as if written by the skin cells.