Contemporary art practice is being transformed (as art has always been) by technological imperatives, and art has a contribution to make in terms of raising the level of public awareness about the technical, economic, political, and social discourses surrounding biotechnologies. Artists working with biological materials or genetic engineering inhabit what is arguably the most controversial realm of emergent art activity. They face unique challenges. By stretching the boundaries of acceptable art practice, they not only provoke the familiar and persistent debates about why or whether something is, or is not, considered art, they also face some of the same dilemmas (philosophical, moral, and ethical) as do scientists who develop and experiment with applications of biological and genetic technologies. In addition, both artists and scientists are familiar with the commercialization of their respective fields by patrons, entrepreneurs, institutions, and corporations. Social roles and economic roles are often in tension. For example, when scientists do research, own shares in companies, and sit on ethics boards. See Elaine Dewar, The Second Tree: Of Clones, Chimeras and Quests for Immortality (Toronto: Random House, 2004).
In advanced biological science there is, on the one hand, the ideal that scientific inquiry benefits the public good, and, on the other, that a free market drives innovation. Art is equally caught between goals of personal expression, social relevance, and commercial value.
Scholars, curators, and galleries have been quick to showcase trends in biotech art. A few examples of exhibitions on this theme: Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution, Exit Gallery, New York; U of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor; Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs (2000); Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Berkeley Art Museum; Frederick Weisman Museum of Art, U of Minnesota; and Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern U (2001); How Human: Life in the Post-Genome Era, International Center of Photography, New York (2003); Art of the Biotech Era, Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts, Australia (2004).
“A ghost is haunting the arts, the ghost of biotechnology.” Melentie Pandilovski, The Ghost of Biotechnology: Art of the Biotech Era
A review of just a few of the artists who have garnered attention for their interventions into advanced technologies is useful for defining the contours of, and themes within, genetic art activities. This is intended to be a selective introduction to some of the issues in bioart, not a survey of its practitioners, too numerous to mention in a short article. For more thorough coverage of biotech artists, see Suzanne Anker and Dorothy Nelkin, The Molecular Gaze. Art in the Genetic Age (New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2004), and George Gessert, “A History of Art Involving DNA,” Ars Electronica Archive, http://www.aec.at/en/archives/festival_einstieg.asp
Seekins has divided her examples into four categories: co-opting the lab, genetic portraits, the language of DNA, and collapsing boundaries. Her essay connects these themes in biotech art to relevant stories from biotech research.
Sandra Seekins / Of Molecules and Matter: The Promises and Perils of Biotech Art
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