ECLECTIC ARTICLES

Montserrat College of Art presents
It’s Alive: A Laboratory of Biotech Art

Exhibit and Essay by Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury

In a world rapidly transformed by science and technology, experiments in genetic engineering are altering our conception of nature and culture. Although news on genetic engineering regularly makes headlines, it is difficult for the general public to keep up with current developments and to truly understand their meanings and implications.

In the past decade, since the introduction of Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell in 1996, and the announcement of the mapping of the human DNA (the human genome) in 2001, the field of biotechnology has undergone many phases of transformation. Cross-species cloning, anthrax, stem cell research, genetic profiling and the genetic manipulation of embryos and our food chain are but a few of the ways in which our lives are impacted by advancements in biotechnology.

Along the way there has been a growing need to respond to these developments, not only by scientists, activists and ethicists, but also by artists, cultural theorists and critics. Geneticist Eric Lander, one of the researchers on the Human Genome Project, supports such responses. In 2001, he stated that, “the meaning of the human genome would not be decided by scientists alone but would be fought out in the arenas of art and culture.”

A growing number of artists have indeed perceived the cultural and aesthetic significance of biotechnology, and their work brings to the forefront the aesthetic, cultural and ethical implications of scientific intervention into life, as we know it.

This new generation of artwork created in response to current developments in biotechnology, so- called “Biotech art,” blurs the boundaries between science and art. First emerging in the late 1990s, it is an up-and-coming and diverse genre that is still in the process of defining itself. In the last few years, the amount of artwork produced that directly deals with biotechnology has significantly increased, revealing new terms such as genetic art, tissue art, transgenic art, wet biology art and the mutagenic arts, to name but a few. Some artists are actually employing biotechnological techniques, working with living tissue, human and/or animal cells, bacteria, viruses and other genetic material to create new life forms or semi-living sculptures. Artists are cloning, breeding, creating hybrids or otherwise intervening in biological processes to produce their art. A popular example, bio artist Eduardo Kac’s GFP Bunny (2000), is the result of a collaboration between the artist and several French scientists who spliced the DNA of a jellyfish with that of an albino rabbit to create Alba, a glow-in-the-dark rabbit. In addition, there is an entire tier of artists that provide commentary on rather than directly engage in the physical employment of biotechnological methods and technologies in their work.

The artwork in It’s Alive! offered a range of viewpoints through visually stimulating images, objects and creative interpretations of biotechnology.  Literally integrating biology and technology into their artwork, several of the artists in the show have dealt with the material in depth for many years, such as Hunter O’Reilly, longtime collaborators Blyth Hazen and Jennifer Hall and Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet. Others have employed biotech art that conveys a specific message within their body of work, where it is but one of multiple subject matters explored, such as Steve Hollinger’s Heart, Adam Brandejs’ Genpets or Brian Knep’s Healing and Drift series. It’s Alive! also included several newly created works made specifically for the exhibit, such as Blyth Hazen’s interactive Getaway, Kevin Jones’s Pseudo Tree and Brian Burkhardt/Tanit Sakakini’s collaborative installation, Homeland. Whether individual pieces or part of a more extensive series, all of the work provided poignant commentary. Each of the artists in the exhibit addressed pertinent issues by examining, critiquing, and exploring the subject in ways that engage dialogue in response to the vast and ever-expanding field of biotechnology.

The genetic revolution has turned the artist’s studio into a laboratory, the artist into a researcher, and living tissue technology into a medium. Artists are experimenting with substances that are often considered bio-hazardous such as Escherichia-coli (commonly known as E-Coli), bodily fluids, and bacteria, and run the risk of being arrested and/or shut down, as happened with the Buffalo, NY-based group Critical Art Ensemble. The risky business of using living organisms as a new art media and the artist as scientist has brought to the forefront a whole new set of ethical considerations and questions of responsibility. How do we as art historians, critics and viewers understand this work? What are the social consequences of all of this experimentation, and where do we draw the line? While scientists are artificially cloning deer in Texas for use on private hunting farms, and people can get their deceased pets cloned, why can’t artists explore similar territory? The goal of this exhibition was to examine the complex subject matter of biotechnology and its impact on artistic practice and, in the process, to render the topics both emotionally and intellectually accessible enough for discussion and debate.

The exhibit did not intend to take sides in the debate, but rather to stimulate viewers to consider the often-controversial issues that surround the cutting-edge research in biotechnology.

Dr. Eric Lander, Whitehead Institute Center for Genomic Research. Quoted in the New York Times, September 12, 2000.
2 For more information on this specific project visit the artist’s website at www.ekac.org
3 For more information on Critical Art Ensemble’s projects visit their website www.critical-art.net