2. For weeks 4-5 there will be an assignment
due after each week.
This week’s assignment:
• Assignment: reflection essay, due Sunday October 4 (25 points)
• Look through the slideshow and pick one of the bioartists who was not discussed extensively in class. Look
closely at the images and learn a bit more about their project by researching online. Write a 500-750 word
“academic casual” essay (you may write in first person, you so not need to follow standard 5-paragraph
expository form, but you should use proper grammar and develop your thoughts in a logical fashion).
• You may respond to some or all of the following prompts: What are the goals and methods of the work?
What aspects of the work consitutue bioart? What connections can you make between the genetic science
introduced in weeks 2-3 and the art work? What makes this project a work of art rather than a science project?
In what ways are art and science complementary? How do they diverge?
• In addition, you are required to answer this question: What does this project have to say about/to/with/against
precision medicine?
3. To know for next week…
Discussion questions will be posted on Courseworks shortly. You
should read each comic closely enough to be able to respond to the
discussion questions. You do not need to answer the questions, but
they should give you a sense of the appropriate level of attention to
put into your reading…
4. What is art? What does art have to say about, with, against, and aside
from science?
Let’s start with a poll
5. What, according to our critics, can Bioart do?
Yetisen et. al.
Art involves conceptual frameworks, fields of association, and avenues of inquiry
not investigated by scientists and engineers (724)
Andrews:
…beyond its aesthetic value, the work can help society to:
• Confront the social implications of its biological choices
• Understand the limitations of the much hyped biotechnologies
• Develop policies for dealing with biotechnologies
• Confront larger issues of the role of science and the role of art in our society…
Art can also challenge the legitimacy and goals of science. (126)
6. In particular, I would emphasize…
Art can be used to challenge and protest
Art takes on taboo subjects
Art introduces questions of aesthetics
Art engages the realm of fantasy, what we fear and desire as well as
what is
7. Tobin Siebers defines aesthetics unconventionally as, “what bodies feel
in the presence of other bodies…”
8. Art can help us reflect on bioethical questions
and raise new ones
• Who has access?
• What happens to privacy?
• Are we living in an age of neo-eugenics?
• Who profits from our genetic information?
• What happens when individual genetic information discloses
hereditary information about other individuals?
• Is precision medicine the best use of limited resources? How to do
the most good?
• Art making and exhibition can also generate new bioethical
questions!
9. Bioart is not new…
• As long as there has been biological
knowledge, artists have responded to and
commented on it
• They have used scientific knowledge to
develop and improve their media
• There is a long history of scientific
illustration
• The juxtaposition of art and biology have
often stimulated scientific discovery
• What is new: knowledge of genomics,
technologies and techniques, a range of
collaborations among artists and scientists
10. Varieties of Bioart
• Art that reflects on bioscience, its ethical and social implications
• The use of biological phenomena as a medium to produce aesthetic
artifacts
• Art that uses bioscience to help us see those techniques differently, in
ways that are often critical or challenging
• Art that works in collaboration with bioscience to extend or further its
research agendas
11. Art that comments on science
Hunter O’Reilly,
Anthrax Clock
(digital, 2002)
12. Samuel Rodriguez and
Nick Love
The Precision Portrait (oil paint atop
aluminum digital illustration, 2018)
“The Precision Portrait seeks to remind
current and future physicians that our
patients are more than collections of
data to be input into the next machine-
learning algorithm. Each data point
represents a grandmother, a teacher, an
artist, or someone’s child”
What do you think???
13. Hunter O’Reilly
Madonna con Clon (oil on canvas, 2001)
The Creation of Organs: Stem Cell Research (oil on canvas, 2001)
14. Art that uses biological phenomena as an
artistic medium
Mehmet Berkmen and Maria Penil’s “Neurons”, winner of the
2015 American Society
of Microbial
Biologists Agar
Art Contest
15. PatrÃcia Noronha, Biopaintings (2009)
PatrÃcia Noronha works with microbial
pigments and biofilms as an artistic tool.
Biopaintings were obtained by controlling the
growth of yeast cells on paper and ensuring the
stability of the final results.
The biopaintings result from the artist´s
observation of the interactions between the cells
and from the experimentation with their
evolving patterns.
16. Art that inspires science
• Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin at St. Mary’s Hospital in 1928
17. Fleming had been creating these “germ paintings” on paper. He found
that fungi killed bacteria in paper artwork. This contributed to the
discovery of antibiotics.
18. Alexander Fleming's microbial art paintings were technically very
difficult to make. He had to find microbes with different pigments and
then time his inoculation such that the different species all matured at
the same time. Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum (Imperial
College Healthcare NHs Trust)
19. Photographer Edward Steichen’s 1-week exhibition of flowering
delphiniums at MOMA in 1936 is cited as a hallmark of bioart.
Steichen used colchine to produce varieties of delphiniums. The first
publication of the effects of colchine on plant materials did not appear
until the following year.
20. Edward Steichen with delphiniums (c. 1938), Umpawaug House
(Redding, Connecticut). Photo by Dana Steichen. Gelatin silver print.
Edward Steichen Archive, VII. The Museum of Modern Art Archives
21. Installation view of the exhibition, Edward Steichen's Delphiniums.
June 24, 1936 through July 1, 1936. The Museum of Modern Art, New
York. Photograph by Edward Steichen
22. A more contemporary example is the work of artist and horticulturalist
George Gessert, who specializes in the selection and hybridization of
irises.
25. Brandon Ballengee
“Species Reclamation Via a Non-linear Genetic Timeline: An Attempted Hymenochirus curtipes Model
Induced By Controlled Breeding” (1998-2006)
This project involved the selective breeding of Hymenochirus family, which are frogs native to the
Congo region in Africa, where biodiversity is threatened by the forest clearing and political turmoil
In their native habitat, wild Hymenochirus populations are in decline or have become extinct
Working with several semi-domesticated varieties available in both the bio-medical field and pet-trade,
I attempted to selectively breed generations to produce a ‘wild-type’ Hymenochirus curtipes
Historic scientific literature describes H. curtipes as a shorter limbed version compared to the semi-
domesticated varieties of today. From each breeding group, animals with physical traits that recalled
the wild types were chosen. These were bred like with like until individuals in a final generation
resembled the historic H. curtipes.
For museum or gallery exhibitions, varied groups of live Hymenochirus sp. frogs were displayed along
with documentary materials. Each artist-bred generation was sculpted through selective breeding and
stylistically different. Each individual animal was living work of art.
26. Species Reclamation Via a Non-linear Genetic Timeline: An Attempted
Hymenochirus curtipes Model Induced By Controlled Breeding. 1998-
2006.
27. Brandon Ballengee
“Species Reclamation Via a Non-linear Genetic Timeline: An Attempted
Hymenochirus curtipes Model Induced By Controlled Breeding” (1998-2006)
Collaborating with biologist Stanley K. Sessions in 2009, Balangee provided
explanations for missing limbs in amphibians
Analysis of his images showed patterns of deformation useful to environmental
and developmental biology, leading to subsequent scientific field studies
28. Species Reclamation Via a Non-linear Genetic Timeline: An Attempted
Hymenochirus curtipes Model Induced By Controlled Breeding. 1998-
2006.
29. Species Reclamation Via a Non-linear Genetic Timeline: An Attempted
Hymenochirus curtipes Model Induced By Controlled Breeding. 1998-
2006.
30. Art that uses the techniques of bioscience to help us see those
techniques differently in ways that are critical or challenging
31. Joe Davis, Microvenus
In the 1970s the Pioneer spacecrafts were dispatched with the plaque on
the left, intended to convey information about the human species to
extraterrestrials.
Davis noticed the female genitalia were absent.
“It’s almost as if they sent a picture of man and Barbie Doll into deep
space,” he says.
•
32. Microvenus is the first artwork made using recombinant DNA
technology. In 1986, he and Harvard biologist Dana Boyd synthesized a
DNA molecule that contained instructions—in the form of a code
composed of the four bases that make up DNA—for creating a figure
that looks like a capital Y superimposed over the letter.
33. Nearly two years later, Davis and Boyd successfully inserted this piece
of synthetic DNA into the genes of a live strain of E. coli bacteria,
which soon reproduced into billions of copies, making Davis and Boyd,
arguably, the most prolific artists on the planet.
34. Microvenus was a ‘proof of concept’ that information could be inserted
into and retrieved from bacterial DNA.
Because its bacterial are recombinant, biosafety restrictions meant it
could not leave the lab.
36. Eduardo Kac, Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous
Discoveries (2006)
A series of works comprised of what Kac calls “biotopes,”
i.e., living pieces that change during the exhibition in
response to internal metabolism and environmental
conditions, including temperature, relative humidity, airflow,
and light levels in the exhibition space.
Each of my biotopes is literally a self-sustaining ecology
comprised of thousands of very small living beings in a
medium of earth, water, and other materials.
I orchestrate the metabolism of this diverse microbial life in
order to produce the constantly evolving living works.
microorganisms in the air (breathing, sneezing).
37. Eduardo Kac, Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous
Discoveries
Every time a biotope migrates from one location
to another, the very act of transporting it causes
an unpredictable redistribution of the
microorganisms inside it (due to the constant
physical agitation inherent in the course of a
trip).
The biotope has a cycle that starts when I
produce the self-contained body by integrating
microorganisms and nutrient-rich media. In the
next step, I control the amount of energy the
phototrophic microorganisms receive in order to
keep some of them active and others in
suspended animation. This results in what the
viewer may momentarily perceive as a “still
image”. However, even if the “image” seems
“still” the work is constantly evolving and is
never physically the same. Only time-lapse
video can reveal the transformation undergone
by a given biotope in the course of its slow
change and evolution..
38. • To only think of a biotope in terms of microscopic living beings is
extremely limiting. While it is also possible to describe a human being in
terms of cells, a person is much more than an agglomerate of cells. A person
is a whole, not the sum of parts. We shall not confuse our ability to describe
a living entity in a given manner (e.g., as an object composed of discrete
parts) with the phenomenological consideration of what it is like to be that
entity, for that entity. The biotope is a whole. Its presence and overall
behavior is that of a new entity that is at once an artwork and a new living
being. It is with this bioambiguity that it manifests itself. It is as a whole
that the biotope behaves and seeks to satisfy its needs. The biotope asks for
light and, occasionally, water. In this sense, it is an artwork that asks for the
participation of the viewer in the form of personal care. Like a pet, it will
keep company and will produce more colors in response to the care it
receives. Like a plant, it will respond to light. Like a machine, it is
programmed to function according to a specific feedback principle (e.g.,
expose it to the ideal temperature and it will grow more, but extreme cold or
heat will discourage activity). Like an object, it can be boxed and
transported. Like an animal with an exoskeleton, it is multicellular, has a
fixed bodily structure and is singular. What is the biotope? It is its plural
ontological condition that makes it unique.
39. Prompted by Kac, let’s talk about “bioambiguity”?
• The biotope is a whole. “It is also possible to describe a human being
in terms of cells, a person is much more.” What is a person? What is
the unit of personhood?
• “It is as a whole that the biotope behaves and seeks to satisfy its
needs… In this sense, it is an artwork that asks for the participation of
the viewer in the form of personal care.” How would you make
meaning of this participation? Is this personal care different from that
demanded by other works of art? Does thinking about care in the
context of this piece invite thought about care relations elsewhere?
What kind of care do viewers owe to the art they contemplate? To one
another? To other life forms?
42. Kevin Clarke portraits
METHOD:
• Kevin Clarke takes blood or saliva samples from the portrayed
and sends them to a laboratory for DNA analysis. He transfers
the unique lines, rhythmic curves or letter sequences of the
respective DNA, which contains the entire genetic information
of the depicted person, to his portraits. Clarke combines this
DNA information with a metaphor that stands for the
personality or a specific character trait of the model. In doing
so, he refers to literary sources as well as to aspects of
science. The viewer is deprived of the face of the subject. Its
appearance remains highly abstract. In this way, the artist
challenges the viewer to intellectual cooperation in order to
recognize the essence, the uniqueness of the person
portrayed.
Portrait of John Cage
43. Kevin Clarke portraits
• Fifteenth Century Chinese painting is known for its
combination of a painted metaphoric image combined
with calligraphy. My portraits use the DNA sequence as
hereditary calligraphy, combined with a metaphoric image
that I create with photography. The metaphor explores
unseen aspects of the person portrayed.
• Self Portrait in Ixuatio, 1988, to the left, contains the
first automated DNA sequence ever made using
PCR. It was made with my blood under an
experiment that I requested of the scientists at
Applied Biosystems in 1988. I required a DNA
sequencing method that revealed something
specific to the individual, a sequence of part of the
person’s basic physical identity. DNA has been
sequenced using this method ever since. The results
of the experiment were published in The Journal
of Clinical Chemistry, Vol. 35, No. 11, 1989, nearly a
year after I made this Self Portrait using my own
DNA. I am credited on page 5 of the publication,
titled “Automated DNA Sequencing Methods
Involving Polymerase Chain Reaction”.
44. Kevin Clarke portraits
In all of these portraits the supposedly objective identity of
the individual is reconsidered and portrayed with a subjective
motif. I substitute a literal representation of a sitter with a
subjective pictorial theme I select, compose, and photograph.
I subvert the traditional mode of photographic representation
with poetic metaphor and suggestion. My portraits open up
associative areas for interpretation that go far beyond simple
identification. The images I compose grow out of my discreet
and harmonious interactions with the subject/sitter…. What
also connects these portraits is the apparently universal
syntax of DNA sequencing and the supposedly objective
quality of photography as well as a deeply personal approach
that opens up the portraits in terms of a context for
deliberately subjective and associative inferences.
Portrait of Jeff Koons (1993)
46. In 2012 I wrote to Eva Beuys regarding my wish
to make a portrait of her late husband using his
DNA. She felt she had no right to offer me any
material thing that may have contained his
DNA, as he was no longer with us to agree to
my request. Nevertheless, she wished me and
my project well. LCG Genomics, Berlin was able
to isolate and sequence Beuys’ DNA from fat
from his fingertips on various pieces and
private postcards he signed, and from saliva
samples derived from stamps he licked. I was
able to include his specific DNA as a kind of
forensic ready-made in subsequent images
including Portrait of Joseph Beuys, Beuys
Bienen, and BeuysBlutwurstBlau.
47. Art that uses body tissue in place of paint and
clay
Mark Quinn,
Self
(model head filled with,
congealed blood, 1991)
48. Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, and Guy Ben-Avry
Semi-Living Worry Dolls (2000)
49. Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, and Guy Ben-Avry
If Pigs Could Fly (2000-2001)
51. Andrews
Whether life science art will become a new school of art, a lobbying
effort, a means of social criticism, or perhaps all three, remains to be
seen. There is no question, though, that it is shaping the public
discourse about genetics and reproductive technologies (128)
