Week 6 - BioTech + Art

I think that the combination of these topics and what the consequences of their connection are can be summed up in this quote from Barry Schuler: "... revolution .. about to change everything we know about the world, life, ourselves and how we think about them". In Schuler's Ted Talk, Genomics 101, he focuses on this week's topic of biotech with an underlying notion of what visualization of biological aspects does in the name of art. His discussion on the organization of knowledge for development in both fields, as well as, what synthesis does in an artistic way leads directly into this week's issues. Organization is what Mel Chin did in his work of the "Revival Fields". This creation of fenced in plants on a wasteland is not only aesthetically pleasing but speaks to the development of remediation methods of resculpting land.

Synthesis is another aspect that combines biotech and what we understand of dimensions in art. Joe Davis as an artist has done this through his piece Microvenus. The piece contains a coded visual of female genitalia hidden in sequenced DNA models. Art embedded and synthesized in a bacteria genome shows exactly how helpful creating a model can be for scientists. Craig Venter also made this connection in his Ted Talk on synthetic life. Venter sees how developing a biological side, after already understanding it chemically, of DNA we can make significant leaps to replicating it.

Looking at things biologically can be very helpful in other fields of science, especially when they involve modeling. In Ellen Levy's Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications, she references Rodney Brooks, a robotics scientist who spent time looking into biological environmental reactions of people in developing his models of robots. This re-synthesis of human life is another of the intersections between biotechnology and art. However, this can seem outlandish to polarized societies on either end of the spectrum. Hardcore scientists and artists would see this combination as outside the system. This is exactly what Christopher Kelty talks about in his essay on the meaning of participation and outlaw biology. He compares several different types of people from a Victorian gentleman to a hacker, and what it means to develop within and around a system, much like what these scientists do with art and biology. 


Sources:

Chin, Mel. “Revival Field.” Mel Chin, melchin.org/oeuvre/revival-field.

Davis, Joe. “Joe Davis: Genetics and Culture.” Joe Davis, geneticsandculture.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w03/davis_joe.htm.

Kelty, Christopher M. “Meanings of Participation: Outlaw Biology?” Journal of Science Communication, Mar. 2010.

Levy, Ellen K. “Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications.” Context Providers: Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts, 2011.

Schuler, Barry. “Transcript of ‘Genomics 101.’” TED, June 2008, www.ted.com/talks/barry_schuler_genomics_101/transcript?language=en.

Venter, Craig. “Transcript of ‘Watch Me Unveil ‘Synthetic Life’".” TED, May 2010, www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_unveils_synthetic_life/transcript.