Week 6: Biotechnology and Art

Many of the technologies this week I had previously only considered for very scientific, academic reasons. I had learned about GFP in the context of ontogenetics and mouse neurons, and about white blood cells in the context of immunology. I had never considered that someone might inject different genes into an organism for art purposes, as Eduardo Kac did with his GFP Bunny, using transgenic art to make an albino bunny glow green under ultraviolet light (Kac). This does make me question the ethics behind transgenic art: are we, humans, at liberty to mess with the natural order of the world? How far is too far? I think I agree with the scientists who consider this idea interesting, but silly – with so many things that we do not know about genetics, diseases, and the human body, it seems that the resources used to make the green bunny could be put towards helping people instead (Vesna).
Kac's GFP Bunny
            Kathy High’s Blood Wars, while artistic, seems to me like an art piece that could also have interesting implications for the medical field (About the Project). The Blood Wars involve two different people’s white blood cells battling for dominance in a petri dish, until the strongest cells win. It would be interesting to keep track of the characteristics of the winning cells and see how these affect that person’s ability to fight disease. Such information could be used to treat those with weak immune systems.
A snapshot of High's Blood Wars in a petri dish
            Kathy High is a contributor at SymbioticA, a biotechnological art laboratory in Australia, where many interesting art pieces have been constructed, from Adam Zaretsky’s studies of the effects of music and sounds on E. Coli bacteria (Zaretsky), to Oron Catts’s Autotroph, a kinetic sculpture which explores the issues of human solutions to human-caused climate change (Oron Catts: The Autotroph). The unique perspectives coming from SymbioticA challenge how we typically view science and appear to use art to make new discoveries that can help make the world a better place. Thus, it is clear that the uniting of biotechnology and art can provide new perspectives that could result in new, unconventional discoveries that would not have come about without a heightened level of creativity from the artist.
Oron Catts's Autotroph

Works Cited
“About the Project.” Blood Wars, Vampire Study Group, vampirestudygroup.com/bloodwars/about/.
“The Autotroph.” The Tissue Culture and Art Project, University of Western Australia , lab.anhb.uwa.edu.au/tca/.
High, Kathy. “Blood Wars in Petri Dish .” Kathy High , kathyhigh.com/project-blood-wars.html.
Kac, Eduardo. “GFP BUNNY.” NATURAL HISTORY OF THE ENIGMA, 2000, www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor.
“Oron Catts: The Autotroph.” The SymbioticA Research Group : SymbioticA , The University of Western Australia, www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/residents/catts-adaptation.
Vesna , Victoria, director. 5 Bioart pt1 1280x720. YouTube, 18 Sept. 2013, youtu.be/PaThVnA1kyg.
Young, Emma. “GFP Bunny .” New Scientist, 22 Sept. 2000, www.newscientist.com/article/dn16-mutant-bunny/.
Zaretsky, Adam. “Documents from Adam Zaretsky's Research Affiliation with the Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Arnold Demain Laboratory of Microbiology and Industrial Fermentation.” BioArtLab, emutagen.com/artbiogl.html.

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