Week 6 - BioTech + Art

-
BioArt seems to show an interesting purpose within the area of not only arts, but science as well. This week in the reading by Chris Kelty, he talks about the three types of features in the landscape of public participation today which consist of hackers, outlaws, and Victorian gentlemen scientists (pg.1). Many people do not like the idea of outlaw biology because they see it as fake or as a myth. It feels as if many people are against the idea of these people in this system mainly due to the fact that these people are artists and not scientists and they are not as welcomed into a lab setting. This topic of BioArt is heavily scrutinized because they want tot use the idea of genes mutations and turn them into art. Just like this artist here, he used a polymer-scaffold that was shaped like a ear into his skin. Projects and creations like this upset people because they feel it is wrong to use a mutation in the body and turn it into art.
Man grows arm on his ear due to gene mutation
https://i1.wp.com/sharetu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/stelarc.jpg?resize=760%2C390
ALBA and Eduardo Kac
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/144044888057145841/
In the second article I read by Ellen Levy, she mentions "These artistic efforts include the identification of basic components of life and reproduction exploration of entities that straddle boundaries and the consideration whether animals or body parts, such as genes, should count as property." This point backs up my findings because it relates back to how these artists want to use messed up genes and make it into art and claim it as their property, because in the science world when mutations occur they are looked at with a negative connotation. Like Eduardo Kac and his creation of the his transgenic albino bunny ALBA. The bunny was part of a project called the "GFP Bunny." There is a lot of controversy regarding ALBA and if it should even be considered a piece of art because there were a lot of genetic modifications made to it. Sadly due to all the changes the bunny passed away and became unrecognizable.

Gene modification in foods could also be considered BioArt because there is alteration of the food. It is being changed from its current state into something else. These foods may look more appealing due to how they look. Certain foods such as bananas, corn, carrots are genetically modified to look much larger. This is mostly done for aesthetic purposes.
Genetically modified fruits and vegetables
https://www.slashgear.com/genetically-modified-foods-are-safe-so-stop-freaking-out-20440977/

Kelty, Chris. “Meanings of Participation: Outlaw Biology?”

 “Transgenic Bunny by Eduardo Kac.” GNN - Genome News Network, www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/03_02/bunny_art.shtml.

Levy, Ellen K. “Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications.”

Haridy, Rich. “Art in the Age of Ones and Zeros: BioArt.” New Atlas - New Technology & Science News, New Atlas, 17 Mar. 2017, newatlas.com/art-ones-and-zeros-bioart/48391/.

“Professor Grows an Ear in His Arm for Art Project.” ITV News, ITV Hub, www.itv.com/news/2015-08-15/professor-grows-an-ear-in-his-arm-for-art-project/.









Comments

  1. UnknownMay 15, 2018 at 12:28 AM

    You pose an interesting take how genetic mutations are viewed within certain communities. For the biological community, genetic mutations are bad for the most part and different methods are utilized to find the root cause to reverse these deformities. In the artistic community, mutations can be seen as a means of artistic expression, as seen by people inducing mutations on themselves. However, I think artists have to draw a line when manipulating life. Tweaking with life is not the same as creating art from inanimate things. Tinkering with the fine balances that govern life can risk eventual death of the specimen made, like the Alba bunny. Therefore, I think artists need to be more careful when they think about integrating things with life or that impact life into the art pieces.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 8 - NanoTech + Art

-
Image
Hiro Tadashi the kid in Big Hero 6 holding his microbots https://www.sidefx.com/community/big-hero-6/ The field of nanotechnology is a very peculiar one. It is one of those topics that not many people pay attention to and give a lot of focus to. Nanotechnology should be hard or not visible to the naked eye, it takes looking under a microscope to see. In this week's reading I read "The Nanomene Syndrome" it mentions "Nanotechnology is more of a science than technology" (Gimzewski and Vesna). In the same reading, I also found "Nanotechnology was first proposed in the early seventies by a Japanese engineer' (Gimzewski and Vesna). I then made the connection that a few years ago in the Disney movie Big Hero 6 that took place in Japan, there was this kid who created the idea of microbots which were derived from nanotechnology. That is one of the few instances that I could remember that nanotechnology was featured in a film and used as one of the main st
Read more

Week 2 - Math + Art

-
Image
This week's topic caught my attention that math and art go hand in hand and that artists use mathematics when they create their masterpieces. The idea of using geometric shapes in arts and mathematics is very common. Professor Vesna mentioned the ideas of symmetry, geometry, and the golden ratio that helps to the progression of art in her lecture of Math + Art.  In the novel Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott, I was able to see to how they used the idea of the direction on a compass and different perspectives of art and how it is integrated with math. Essentially the third dimension came in and brought the focus of height along with direction and measurement. Art can be expressed through many different aspects.  In  Linda Henderson's article "The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art: Conclusion",  she discusses how there are a lot of different theories that could be related back to math and science and art. Some of these pictu
Read more

Event 2 - The Construction of the Environment in Epigenetics Research

-
Image
Clemence Pinel background information On May 9, 2018, I went to listen to Clemence Pinel who came from King's College in London in the Life Science building on campus to talk about the environment of epigenetics research. It was very interesting to see what actually goes on in the business aspect of a lab. She mentioned how researchers can be entrepreneurs and they try to focus the most on ethnographic studies. She mentioned how her study involved two different labs (Pinel, 5/9/18). Lab A consisted of a breast cancer research lab which focused on gylcobiology and epigenetics and around two genes or our genes.Lab B was about computational biology so it involved epigenetics, microbiome, and transcriptomics and it was centered around their twins data. She also mentioned how scientists and researchers focus on certain environmental factors in their study. One thing that she mentioned that I was able to understand really well was how scientists are "wild" capitalists bec
Read more