Nature, Bioart and Creative Autonomy

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Nature, Bioart and Creative Autonomy

--What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to

earn a living just by being themselves?

Katherine Dunn, “Geek Love”, 1983

From the first cave paintings created by ancient man to current contemporary works, artists

have sought to record and document nature. Throughout history, art was nature. To be more

specific, man’s artistic depictions of nature were commonly concise and representational,

resulting in works that showed nature’s beauty and power and addressed man’s place within it.

Whether through the repetition of hand prints in the caves at Chauvet, the exquisite paintings

of the wilderness by Frederick E. Church and Albert Bierstadt, or the most recent works by

artists such as Damien Hirst, Alexis Rockman, Eduardo Kac and others, artists continue to

address the multifaceted ideas and themes related to nature and its complex relationship with

man.

This definition of nature includes the human form, which is widely considered one of the most

frequently depicted subjects in the history of art. Humans have found it necessary to continually

examine our physical forms and how we relate to and exist within nature. Constant reminders

of our vulnerability as corporal animals appear when we see the news stories of the most

current natural or human made disaster. Whether we are receptive to it or not, artistic visual

representations of the body help us to understand our place within the wider world, and assist

us in examining nature and how we interact with it, how we utilize it and ultimately its effects on

us as a species.

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In the last ten years, artists in the “genetic age” have taken the initiative to create works that

have never been experienced before. In 2000, when President Clinton announced the

“completion of the first survey of the entire human genome”1 artists immediately began to

create works that react to, accept, investigate and question this information. These works of art

utilize scientific discoveries and artists are often the very first reactors and consumers of new

technological information. Artists are collaborating with scientists to create new works of art

that are effectively questioning the validity of new biotechnology research and its effect on our

culture.

Techniques, tools and scientific protocols are being used by artists to create new art. It has

meant that our culture must look more closely, and possibly regard more carefully and seriously

what artists are producing and what impact these new artworks will have on our lives. Culture

has traditionally had a complex relationship with artistic products, and their impact has ranged

from tangible to insignificant. These new bio artworks are the stepping-stones to more extreme

and transgressive works, and are using much of the same technology that is being developed for

scientists.

Nature, art and transgression

In early art history, the artist that created the first picture that was not a representation based

on nature as we see it can safely be thought of as the first transgressor. In Transgressions: The

Offences of Art, Anthony Julius states ” there have always been transgressive artworks;

transgressions are as old- or almost as old-as the rules they violate or the proprieties they

offend”2. He defines the term transgression as that which “refer(s) to any exceeding of

boundaries.” 3 From the beginning of time, the purpose of art has been to duplicate and

illustrate nature for the church, private individuals and the public. These patrons often desired

the closest depiction of nature that was humanly possible (and were enhanced along the way).

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The concept that art could be something else, in other words, could depict anything other than

glorifying or visually representing, is a relatively new concept. Artists today not only have

embraced the transgressive when creating new visual art works, but utilize this as a method of

questioning current research, thought and cultural mores related to nature, science,

experimentation and the impact of these within our lives and society as a whole.

There was always the risk that art could be transgressive based on the artist’s compositional

approach, the treatment of the subject, particularly the treatment of the human body. The

representational depiction of the figure within many paintings is fraught with hidden meaning and

historians have decoded these agendas, giving insight into the subversive ways that artists utilize

nature to affect social thought and change. The depiction of the nude in E´douard Manet’s Le

déjeuner sur l'herbe, brazenly looking out at the viewer while keeping company with clothed

contemporary men was thought of as scandalous at the time for a number of reasons. The

painting not only rocked the conventions of traditional painterly composition and the art canon,

but the use of the nude and the natural setting both contributed to the public and critical

condemnation of the painting. The fact that the figures were set in the open environment, in

“nature” and that the woman was considered naked, rather than nude created an outcry.

More recently, British artist Damien Hirst has certainly put the corporal body at the forefront,

requiring viewers to confront some aspects of nature and its beauty and horror. His seminal

work, A Thousand Years, features a rotting cow head in a glass vitrine, a bug zapper, and flies. It

illustrates the circle of life/death in one very contained space, bringing to the viewer’s

consciousness the realities of the natural world. This work brings to the forefront the ultimate

in transgression, its destruction by natural decomposition, a process that is neither palatable nor

desirable for humans to encounter on an intimate basis.

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Because nature is the ultimate measure, our yardstick for all things, how are we to perceive the

new breakthroughs in biological and information technology? “ ‘Life,’ materialized as information

and signified by the gene, displaces ‘Nature’, preeminently embodied in and signified by old-

fashioned organisms”. 4If life is information, then art is also information, and the way that

contemporary artists are addressing the creation of works that depict life and nature has

become information as well. The impact of these advances will undoubtedly affect forever our

relationship with nature and the treatment of the human body.

The objectified body and artistic practice

For our purposes, when we refer to the human body, we are referring to nature. We are

nature, in a more direct way than any other organism, because regardless of what we deduce as

morally right, we are an anthropocentric species. In many religions, the body has traditionally

been thought of as a manifestation of god’s benevolence and therefore a sacred thing that should

not be manipulated, defiled or changed by man. This respect for nature and for life as the center

of man’s existence has been challenged by much of the experimentation and research that is

happening in the biological sciences and has been incorporated by artists and other practitioners

that are creating multidisciplinary work.

Today’s artists are questioning and participating in a variety of biological and technical research,

from utilizing the body and manipulating nature and its resources, to employing living tissue and

organisms within their works. The current manipulation of life-based tissue and genetic material

and the controversies around ownership and research bring into question ideas of creative

autonomy in both artistic and scientific spheres. When the body is used for either artistic or

scientific experimentation, the difficulty lies in the fact that we are considering manipulation of

the body at both a cellular and an organism level, and we are generally unaware of the short and

long term impact of these experiments on the integrity of the human species. Artists are

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currently working with human and animal cells and tissue and whole organisms, ranging from a

variety of lower life forms that include bacteria and other single celled life to rodents and other

animals. Because we are not informed as a culture about the transformations that are occurring

in the scientific and commercial realm, it is difficult for us as a society to make informed moral

judgments about these new technologies. Artists and scientists alike must determine exactly

what is permissible in today’s standards for the use and manipulation of these raw materials.

Bioartists are using these materials to create works that are wholly new, and our current

attitudes about these works will affect the fate of nature as an institution.

Life as a raw material in artistic practice is not a new concept. Throughout the history of art the

human body has been both a familiar and mysterious subject, providing both narrative

opportunities and possibilities that push the limits of art. The idea that the body is the first and

final frontier in both artistic and scientific practice is both an anthropocentric and realistic view.

Cultures have been manipulating their bodies for millennia, and there is a clear indication that

humans have preferences for certain genetic traits. Within the human species, this has led to

questions of cultural eugenics and racism, but these very preferences and attitudes are prevalent

in selective breeding when it comes to animals and plants. These organisms have been

manipulated for centuries to achieve the end product of the fastest racehorse, the most

beautiful flower, the most delicious fruit, or the best hunting dog. These selective breeding

techniques are the very things that as humans, we react strongly against when applied to our

own species.

In the last few decades, artists have used their own bodies to make statements about these

genetic preferences, using performance art to objectify their bodies and the human body in

general. The French artist Orlan has employed her body as the raw material of her work and

has changed her physical appearance to illustrate and reflect ideas about feminine beauty, ethnic

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heritage, racism, and eugenics. Through the medium of plastic surgery, Orlan illustrates the

manipulation of the live body and the cultural consequences of this manipulation. 5 Her surgery

is an integral part of the performance of this transformation, and is documented in video and

photographs. The performative aspects of her work also pose questions about manipulation of

the body as a plastic medium and experimentation for the sake of aesthetics.

Artists also utilize the dead human body in their works. Several examples in current

contemporary art point to a change in our thinking about the body as a sacred and profound

object. Gunther von Hagens well-known traveling exhibit “Body Worlds” has been touring for

several years. Von Hagens, a self-described “scientist/artist” developed a method of preserving

whole human bodies (he calls them gestalt plastinates), which he displays in athletic, lifelike

poses. Von Hagens describes at great length the process of the moral thinking behind the

preservation of these corpses, and is quite good at anticipating any questions that might arise

from viewers. Von Hagens states, “The lifelike poses of [gestalt plastinates] are so similar to the

living that viewers can actually recognize and even feel their own corporeality and can identify

with it”. 6 Von Hagens sees his work as educational, and while it is hard for the general public to

argue with good science education, one leaves the exhibit with more questions than one enters

with. The same can be said for the competing “Bodies: The Exhibition” which was unofficially

billed as the more “educational and respectful” version of these traveling exhibits. “Bodies: The

Exhibition” was developed by scientists in the United States and China. In both cases, questions

arise: the donation of the specimens in “Body Worlds” was by written permission while the

people were still living; the corpses in “Bodies” were unclaimed and procured in China. The

specimens in both shows were dynamically and athletically posed, calling to question the

tradition of respect for the dead. Many of the specimens were arranged in morosely humorous

stances. In the “Bodies: The Exhibition” the display had a true feeling of actual specimens rather

than artificial models. In fact the hall where the exhibit was displayed emanated a preserved

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smell, and airflow was kept at a constant rush to deter any lingering odors. This caused loose

tissue and tendons to sway with the breeze, causing more than one visitor to leave more quickly

than he may have intended.

Gunther Von Hagens insists that he be referred to as a scientist/artist. In all photographs of

Von Hagens, he has consciously modeled himself after Joseph Beuys, one of the most important

artists of the twentieth century, by wearing a similar hat and expression. This detail might be

lost on many visitors to “Body Worlds”, but it focuses on the important question of intent in

relation to these exhibits and how details in their presentation can change our perception of the

use of human remains. Von Hagens states, “I wend my way through organs, bones and muscles

and slide down nerves, as if I were moving around in a basement storeroom…” 7 These details

can’t help but skew our thinking about “Body Worlds” and regardless of the fact that these

bodies were legally used with permission, it changes our perception of the exhibit as a serious

scientific investigation.

The fact that the specimens in “Bodies: The Exhibition” were unclaimed from far away third-

world China, and were racially non-European affects our perception of this exhibit. We

subconsciously are more willing to accept this exhibit as a scientific one and don’t as readily

question the use of these particular specimens, even though they were unclaimed and no

permission was granted.

This reminds us of the fact that we can no longer view mummified human bodies at natural

history museums. Because these remains are considered sacred relics, we are no longer able to

publicly view them out of respect. It brings up the question of intent of the living person before

death, and what kinds of rights and choices that person had been able to make in terms of the

display of his/her own body after death. This is not different than what is being traveled in “Body

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Worlds”; in fact Von Hagens does have permission of the living person. Does written

permission indicate that it is permissible for us to view these remains publicly?

Artist Joel-Peter Witkin has manipulated living and dead bodies for most of his career. The

photographer makes a unique statement about our relationship to our life and death by posing

live models that often have some kind of deformity and are uncharacteristic of the usual nude

that we are accustomed to. These figures are often posed within some kind of classical setting,

bringing to mind the juxtaposition of deformity and perfection. Witkin says “Inevitable death and

our agony to attain Utopia have made existence a form of pathology. We are left with a secret

need for redemption. …This need still lives in acts of love, courage and art.” 8 Some of his later

works include human cadavers and body parts that have been procured from morgues

throughout the world. It is unclear whether the artist plays an active role in altering these

human remains for his own artistic intent. Whether or not he does physically alter these

corpses, the viewer must question the role of the artist and the moral boundaries that the artist

encounters in pursuing his vision. While Witkin’s final works are photographic documents of

these body parts and cadavers, this manipulation is an important step within the movement

toward current trends in bioart. Artists and the public are slowly becoming more familiar with

the use of biological, organic, living and dead material in the creation of artistic works. This

illustrates the complex and difficult questions that come to the fore when using life as an artistic

material.

Early on, artists paved the way to future bioart by using living and dead animals in their

performances and the creation of sculptures and installations. For example, in Joseph Beuys

early important performance work How To Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965) the artist

entered a gallery space with his face covered in honey and gold leaf, holding a dead hare. The

artist walked around the space, explaining the pictures on the wall to the hare. Beuys stated that

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the work was concerned with issues such as human and animal consciousness. In 1974, Beuys

created another well-known action, I Like America and America Likes Me, in which he lived with a

coyote in a gallery space for three days. Other artists have performed works with live or dead

animals, sometimes incorporating the killing of animals within the works themselves. Danish

artist Marco Evaristti exhibited a work in Copenhagen in 2000 that consisted of blenders that

contained goldfish. Gallery viewers were invited to blend the fish or not, depending on their

particular interest and moral position. Trapholt Art Museum Director Peter Meyer was charged

with animal cruelty, but was acquitted after a court ruled that the two fish killed had died

"instantly" and humanely".

Historically, artists and academics have been fascinated with the human body and its flaws and

imperfections, and there is a long history of documentation of monsters and mutations in

historical texts. Humans have been both awed and afraid of these creatures, which are human

but are decidedly different, and wondered at how and why they were formed. The recent

interest in the human genome and genetic manipulation in general has renewed interest in these

phenomena for artists and scientists and has focused attention on the idea of genetic mutation

and its control. In addition to the interest in incorporating living and dead organisms in artistic

practice, there is a fascination with the abnormal body in contemporary art and literature that

reflects ideas of discovery and experimentation that is prevalent in what is going on today in

current artistic and scientific research.

The “discovery” and exhibition of chimera, and hybrid animal/humans such as the Feejee

Mermaid in P.T. Barnum’s Circus in 1842 sparked an interest in the possibilities and mysteries of

nature for the average citizen. These manufactured creatures were made from animal body

parts and paper maché and were stitched together and promoted as real preserved creatures to

a public that was open minded and curious about the wonders of nature. The popularity of

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these chimeras and other sideshow acts and displays illustrated the acceptance by the general

public to whatever nature might bring their way.

Recent scientists have created a number of human/animal chimeras, most notably the

development of the rabbit/human embryos developed at Shanghai Second Medical University in

China in 20039. These Para humans are the next wave in the manipulation of our cellular and

genetic material and the possibility of what the future could bring to the definition of species

The body, the commons, ownership and use

The current explosion in medical research in the past fifteen years has a direct correlation to

the completion of the human genome project and other recent scientific discoveries that relate

to our bodies and nature. The rapid increase in medical breakthroughs has also had an

enormous impact on the availability of tissue and organisms to average citizens for

experimentation and artistic use. Because of the lack of overall controls or limitations on the

use of living organic products, this has created an environment in which these materials have

entered the realm of artistic practice.

The human genome project opened up the floodgates of entrepreneurship and scientific

prospecting related to these newly discovered resources. Jeremy Rifkin states, “The worldwide

race to patent the gene pool of the planet is the culmination of a five-hundred-year-odyssey to

commercially enclose and privatize all of the great ecosystems that make up the Earth’s

biosphere.”10 Through this booming business in both the medical sciences and private business

ventures, human and animal body products have been reduced to quantitative status, disallowing

ideas of the preciousness of life, the line between sacred and profane and posing questions of

intrinsic and utilitarian value. While exploring on the web, it is easy to access a wide range of

human tissue options available to researchers. For instance, on the site for the MatTek

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Corporation, a specification for Epi-Vaginal (TM) cells are described as “Normal human

ectocervical cells (NHEC) are differentiated into tissues with a non-cornified, vaginal-

ectocervical phenotype (part number VEC-100)”.11 The availability of these cells for legitimate

research purposes is important, but the actual sources are not detailed on this site other than

stating that the cells are donated. As individuals, once we send a sample of our tissue to a lab for

study, it routinely becomes useful to the medical industry in a variety of ways, pointing out the

fact that we don’t actually own our own body materials, at least from a medical research

standpoint.

The idea of value brings to mind the question of the commons as a concept and how the idea of

enclosure has affected our thinking about the fundamentals of nature. The commons has been

defined as that which is owned by all to benefit all. The human body and all living materials have

been reduced to the commons, as indicated in recent reports of the use of organic tissue

samples and genetic materials as used in scientific research without the benefit of permission or

notification. Current science has enlarged the commons, to become whatever is useful for the

benefit of mankind and can be utilized without consent. The current view remains that harming

the individual is a small price to pay as mankind benefits through these recent discoveries.

While bacteria, lab animals, and human tissue products are available by mail order and through

the web, purchasing these living materials is not without risk. The political ramifications of

creating bioart can be illustrated by the current case of The U.S. Justice Department vs. Steven

Kurtz and Robert Ferrell. Steven Kurtz is an artist and a member of Critical Art Ensemble, “a

collective of internationally recognized artists who work in public, educational, academic and art

contexts”12 whose principal goal is to assist the public in understanding biotechnology. They do

this through the presentation of projects, websites and performances, and while they do not

have a general position on the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and other

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biotechnologically related products, they bring to the fore questions and troubling concerns

about our ability to assess and distinguish between useful scientific experimentation and for-

profit biotech inventions.

Steven Kurtz’s wife, Hope, died of heart failure at their home in May 2004, and Kurtz

immediately called 911. In investigating the death, the Buffalo, New York police found Petri

dishes containing bacteria (Serratia marcescens, a harmless anthrax simulant), and seized these

materials and other personal and professional items and equipment as evidence against Kurtz.

The house was condemned as a possible health risk. In subsequent testing of the bacteria, it was

determined that it was a harmless strain used in many undergraduate labs, and that it was not

possible to manufacture or alter these materials into any toxic or hazardous substances. In the

meantime, Kurtz has been accused of violating Section 175 of the US Biological Weapons Anti-

Terrorism Act of 1989 as expanded by the US Patriot Act, and on charges of mail fraud. The

case is still pending.

The outcome of this case will have an enormous impact on freedom of speech for artists and

scientists and for any researcher engaged in interdisciplinary inquiry and investigation. It is clear

that the use of these organisms in the wrong setting out of context is a political and social risk.

While scientific work occurs within a laboratory setting and with regulations and protocols,

artistic experimentation can occur anywhere, and regulations are non-existent. Academic

freedoms are being challenged by cases such as these, and the final rulings will have an impact on

the scope of artistic and scientific investigation, where it can occur and what kind of regulation

and oversight is maintained.

In contrast, the well-known GPS Bunny created by Eduardo Kac has enjoyed different results.

Kac, along with French scientists, created Alba, the glowing green bunny in 2000. The GPS

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Bunny is a multistage artistic project that incorporated biotechnology, public awareness and

dialogue related to this technology, and the idea of social acceptance and integration of the

organism into family life.13 Alba was created in a lab setting by injecting green fluorescent protein

(GFP from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria) into the fertilized egg of an albino rabbit. The egg was

then implanted in a rabbit mother who gave birth naturally to Alba. The fact that the organism

was created with the oversight of scientists, using a technique that had been in use in

laboratories since the 1980s and the jellyfish proteins are commonly used in scientific

investigation, lent the project political, artistic and social gravity. Regardless of the fact that it is

debatable whether living artworks such as this should be created, the fact that this project

utilized science and proven scientific techniques immediately lends credibility to it and assures

critics that this artistic endeavor is legitimate and not harmful.

With the recent controversies about stem cell research and the use of human tissue and cells

for artistic and scientific research purposes, an enormous debate has erupted on how we set

value for these life products. Scientists and private concerns are creating new life forms on a

daily basis many with altogether unique characteristics. The splicing and separation of genetic

materials and the conscious implantation within other organisms appears at least at the outset,

minimally different than the selective breeding that has been occurring for thousands of years.

However, the introduction of a gene or a cell into a living organism that can pass along that gene

to its offspring is a form of manipulation that hasn’t occurred in our culture before the last few

years. Since this introduction of genetic/cellular material would never be possible except by

human intervention, it is necessary that we examine the consequences of these actions, as they

will impact the world in completely new ways.

Science, art and experimentation

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Both artists and scientists share an affinity for experimentation and a desire to forge new

frontiers in their fields, looking for and creating something that has never been attempted or

discovered before. There is a profound curiosity in both disciplines, with a desire to experiment

using whatever materials are available to them. For artists, the idea of scientific research is not

far removed from their normal routine of artistic practice. The fact that scientists generally

garner more public respect than artists is not lost on many bio artists, who enjoy the idea of

working within a lab setting with scientists as their collaborators. The idea of working within the

structure of a scientific environment is attractive to many artists, who see themselves as

operating outside the normal grid. It is a way for them to reap the benefits of both worlds, and

also to achieve satisfaction with the idea of creating something subversive within the mainstream

scientific community.

Scientists who are using live animals and living tissue are being scrutinized more astringently than

ever before by animal ethics panels and regulatory agencies. These checks and balances are non-

existent in the artistic arena. The only tangible line is the law, which includes statutes to protect

animals from cruelty and undue suffering. Assessment of scientific experimentation is judged on

the idea of “scientific quality” and the outcome of benefits to society. It is similar to the idea of

“artistic quality” and just as difficult to judge.

Even at the termination of many scientific experiments, if is difficult to measure the tangible

benefit or worth of the activity in real time. It often takes decades to reap the benefits of

discoveries in the scientific arena. This is also the case with artistic practice. Often it takes years

and some perspective to be able to recognize the value of artistic activities. And even then, what

tangible value, besides monetary can be used to evaluate either scientific or artistic

experimentation and final outcomes, particularly new biotech experimentation? The outcome

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and benefits are loosely judged against the harm caused to the living subject, which is evaluated

based on its species and degree of sentience.

The peer review in the art world is not by any means objective in clarifying the value of an art

practice or a specific work. It is similar to editorial panels in academia or any other field. It is

likely that art is more subject to taste and trends than scientific research would be. Both fields

build on the progress made by earlier practitioners, which seems to be one of the only ways to

evaluate something that is completely new. Public dialogue and reaction are also valid ways to

evaluate experimentation and its impact.

As mentioned, artists have always been interested in the idea of the transgressive and the moral

questions about what they create. Artists are also attracted by technologies and concepts that

traditionally push the limits of their artistic practice, creating works that interface with culture in

new ways. General culture is not always ready for these experimental approaches to art making,

but as can be seen in much of the new bioart, the dialogue between what the artist creates and

what the scientist creates is important and provides insight into each realm.

In recent bioart, artists are continuing to create new living beings and using life as raw material

in their work. The actual intent of these works is purely artistic, but there is a cultural dialogue

that is created simply by the existence of these living artworks. Many bioart works are ethically

ambiguous and generate questions and dialogue during its duration, utilizing public input as an

integral part of its cultural message.

Artist George Gessert began experimenting with living genetic materials and organisms in the

late 1970’s. His focus on the selective breeding of hybrid iris illustrates a primarily aesthetic

approach to genetic control and manipulation. He creates iris varieties based on visual forms,

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colors and patterns that are of interest to him. Yet he states, “When the medium is alive, is a

purely aesthetic approach to art desirable or even possible?” 14 This was taken a step further by

Marta de Menezes experimentation with butterflies and the alteration of wing patterns through

the use of a needle and a heat generator. The artist altered the pattern of a butterfly’s wing,

while it was still in the cocoon stage, and the butterfly displayed the results of altered wing

patterns on one side, with an untouched and natural pattern on the other. This idea of artistic

and aesthetic manipulation of the development of a living thing is an important step in the more

recent bio art that is being created today.

The real question in the utilization of living animals and organisms, in scientific research and in

artistic practices is the sentience of the beings that are utilized in the research. As

anthropocentric creatures we still have difficulty believing that any organism that is not human

has cohesive thought processes and awareness of its surroundings. We don’t know to what

extent they feel pain or are aware of impending danger. We have no processes for measuring

sentience or evaluating it within a variety of lower organisms and how this might affect our

treatment of the organism. Based on our knowledge of the level of sentience in a living being,

would it actually affect the treatment that we impose upon it during these artistic and scientific

experiments? Because we are centered on human experience and human life, it is a matter of

course that we impose our will upon all other living things without thoroughly addressing the

consequences.

Peter Singer states that sentience exists somewhere between an oyster and a shrimp, 15

(although he now believes we should avoid eating any of these). Life can be divided into two

categories, sentient and non-sentient, which seems to be a purely abstract categorization.

Sentience, as best we can deduct occurs only in beings with certain kinds of nervous systems.

However, there is no scientific basis that humans differ from other animals that contain nervous

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systems. It is entirely possible that all animals with any nervous systems feel or sense pain, and

have the same awareness of fear or threat. Our expanded knowledge of the particular

organisms ability to feel pain would greatly affect how artists and scientists utilize living subjects.

In the laboratories, Xenotransplantation, implanting animal tissue in humans, has been the first

step toward hybrid beings. Scientists have been performing Xenotransplantation since the early

1960’s, most recently with transplants of pig tissue in humans. This promises to be a viable and

potentially life-saving technique that could have important future prospects. But besides the risk

of interspecies infection, there are a number of ethical issues related to the idea of receiving a

body part from another species, no less the fact that patients may feel differently about their

bodies, or feel less than human.

In the last six years, artists have been creating not only living, but semi-living beings. Artists

Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, through their Tissue Culture and Art Project sponsored by

SymbioticA, an Art and Science Collaborative Research Lab, are growing semi-living tissue from

different animal cell lines. The Tissue Culture and Art Projects mission is “an on-going research

and development project into the use of tissue technologies as a medium for artistic

expression”.16 The tissue is grown on a biodegradable scaffold or matrix, and takes the form of

sculptures and objects. Most recently, they have developed a project called Victimless Leather,

in which they grow cell tissue in the form of a Jacket. While the jacket is admittedly small in

format, the concept of the creation of a living jacket that is grown from non-sentient cells

instead of one using animal hide identifies “the moral implications of wearing parts of dead

animals for protective or aesthetic reasons”. Their main goal for this project is to raise

awareness and “questions about the exploitation of other living things”. 17 Unfortunately, at the

termination of the project, these semi-living beings must be killed since they can no longer be

cared for. This is accomplished by simply exposing the beings to human touch, which infects the

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cells making them no longer viable. This provides a non-violent end to these semi-living

creatures. The validity of this final step in the circle of life, creation, nurturing and then

termination must be considered as we evaluate the success of this artistic experiment.

Recently, a collaborative effort of international artists and scientists at Georgia Institute of

Technology, the SymbioticA group, and the Ultrafuturo Group created MEART, an installation

that interfaces rat brain neurons that communicate in real time with a robotic drawing arm. The

website states “MEART is an installation distributed between two or more locations in the

world. Its “brain” consists of cultured nerve cells that grow and live in a neuro-engineering lab,

in Georgia institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA (Dr. Steve Potter's lab). Its “body” is a robotic

drawing arm that is capable of producing two-dimensional drawings. The “brain” and the “body”

will communicate in real time with each other for the duration of the exhibition.” 18 this work

takes the invented body one step further, as it not only exists, but also participates in creating

art.

In 1980 the first invented life form was granted a patent in the United States. This landmark

case, Diamond vs. Chakrabarty ruled that a living organism could be patented. Based on the

development of a bacterium that could ingest oil, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that the

"relevant distinction is not between animate and inanimate things but whether living products

could be seen as human-made inventions”. 19 Scientists all over the world are currently creating

thousands of new life forms. These forms are undoubtedly improvements on natural or less

evolved forms of food sources, domestic animals and other organisms. This genetic engineering

is allowing for the design and fabrication of life forms that affect every aspect of our lives.

Whether the design of these more desirable life forms will have cultural and health affects that

have not been anticipated remains to be seen.

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The idea that inventions using these life materials can be patented for commercial use suggests

that artists can also capitalize on the invention of semi-living art sculptures or other projects

that they may develop. This brings up the idea of ownership of these artworks: can they be

bought and sold on the art market as other artworks are, even though they are alive and require

care?

Currently, art, and particularly visual art, has a peripheral role in mainstream culture within the

United States, but the average citizen is well educated in the consumption of visual images

through the bombardment of the media in its many forms. Much of what artists are producing

today is no longer in keeping with traditional boundaries of art and has become media. There is

a natural progression from artistic ideas about the transgressive and experimental, the

incorporation of new technologies, and the blurring of boundaries in disciplines that is becoming

evident in many cultural products and protocols. Boundaries in these fields are disappearing at a

rapid rate, as information in all of these arenas is processed, combined, discarded and

recombined to create these new works that defy definition and exist within their own creative

space.

The whole idea of the body as a tool or as something that can be manipulated is transgressive

and opposes everything that culturally existed in our societies for thousands of years. But the

very fact that transgression is an essential key to creative autonomy and pushing the boundaries

of invention makes these works possible. Unfortunately, some bioart is not particularly

respectful in relation to audience, culture or nature. For instance, in Adam Zaretsky and Julia

Reodica’s Workhorse Zoo, the artists lived within a constructed enclosed glass environment for

one week. The enclosure was viewable by the public, and there was interaction with the artists

and organisms inside. The environment was filled with nine of the most studied industrial

organisms of modern molecular biology: ��� bacteria (E. coli); yeast (C. cerevisiae), plants (A. thaliana

20

and Fresh Wheat); worms (C. elegans); flies (D melanogaster); fish (D. rerio); frogs (X. laevis); mice

(m. musculus); and humans (H. sapiens). 20

Most of the species in the enclosure are bred for experimentation, and they exist for the sole

purpose of scientific research. They are “the industrial workhorses of molecular biology”.21

During the week that the artists lived within the environment they interacted with the other

species, while the cycles of birth, life, and death occurred as could be expected. The fact that

this project had an overwhelming performative aspect, and gave the artists an audience, is not

lost on most of us, and poses the question of the purpose of aesthetics and artistic intent.

The genome map was the gateway to what might be possible in the medical and biological fields,

creating a revolution that trickles down to every aspect of our existence. Man has continually

reshaped himself physically and culturally, and continues to do so, with the ultimate end a

decoding and altering of our biological structure. We have depended on nature for millennia,

and maintained a give and take relationship with nature over time, but new technologies will

allow humans to control our destiny in ways that we have never had access to before.

Bioart may remove some of the boundaries between art and non-art, as artists continue to

utilize techniques and technologies taken from science and other fields. As the definition of art

becomes more obscure, the impact of this fluidity and flexibility may potentially increase the

impact of art.

Life has become possible as an invention, in that we can manipulate living and soon to be born

organisms to our needs and desires. In addition, the manipulation of genetic material and the

alteration of living beings through plastic surgery suggest that life is something that can be shifted

to suit our needs. This leads us to question where unfettered artistic and scientific

21

experimentation takes us, and how it progresses from where we are now to the next step. The

more that these cultural norms are broken down on a daily basis, and are consumed by the

public through news outlets, the more common and normal it will be to cross the boundaries of

use of the body and of living beings.

1 Human Genome project information, June 25, 2000http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/clinton1.shtml 2 Transgressions: The Offences of Art, Anthony Julius, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2003; p53 3 ibid, p 18

4 Sarah Franklin, 1993, “Life Itself”, paper delivered at the Center for Cultural Values, Lancaster University, June 9. Donna Haraway, Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium. FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse, 1997, Routledge, London, p 137. 5 Orlan <www.orlan.net> 6 Gunther Von Hagens, Body Worlds, p142 7 ibid 8 Joel Peter Witkin, Harms Way 9 Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy, Maryann Mott, National Geographic News, January 25, 2005, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html

10 Jeremy Rifkin, The Biotech Century, p 38 11 http://www.mattek.com/pages 12 Critical Art Ensemble <http://www.caedefensefund.org> 13 Eduardo Kac <www.ekac.org> 14 George Gessert, Breeding for Wildness, p 15 Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, p 174 16 Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts, An Emergence of the Semi-Living 17 ibid 18 MEART, <http://www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au/> 19 www.caselaw.1p.findlaw.com 20 Andrea Rodica and Adam Zaretsky, Workhorse Zoo, <http://emutagen.com/wrkhzoo.html> 21 ibid

22

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