BioTech + Art

    This week we talked about biotechnology and art. It is amazing to see how closely biotechnology is related to art. Such as Joe David's work in the field of "space art", if we look at the printing technology when it is first invented and then to the application of publishing and finally to the application of genetic engineering that go out of the space, we will be surprised of the development of bioart.
    The use of transgenics, mutilation, mutation, recombinant or selective breeding as an artistic technique inspires people to think about the relationship between biotechnology and art, and therefore help people to better understand cultural ideas around scientific knowledge and inform critique of the ethical and cultural issues of life manipulation. The SymbioticA, which is an artistic research lab founded in 2000, impressed me a lot. It offers a new means of artistic inquiry where artists actively use the tools and technologies of science, not just to comment about them but also to explore their possibilities. Like the fish and chips project which later evolved into MEART - the semi living artist. This project also combines robotics and art: It uses neurons from goldfish as 'wetware' to control a robotic drawing arm. The project focuses on creating the artist instead of the artwork. It leads us to think about what is creativity and what creates value in art. The eeaning inherent in the use of biotech as an artistic technique.

    Human's creativity is limitless. With the aid of our newly acquired knowledge of life processes,  such as the ability to cut and paste genes from different organisms, the possibility of coercing living functional tissue (outside of an organism) to grow and behave according to human determined plans, and the prospect of designing artificial genes, artists are now exploring the new knowledge and tools offered by modern biology to manipulate and create living and semi-living works of art.
    Although there is some debate about bioart as creating living beings and practicing in the life sciences brings about ethical, social, and aesthetic inquiry, bioart- which is often shocking or humorous- is leading us to discover more overlap between art and biotechnology. The embodiment of biology and the machine creativity emerging from a semi-living entity shows the meaning inherent in the use of biotech as an artistic technique. From an historical context, artist always concerned about imitating life and giving life qualities to non-living entities. Technology especially the biotech has joined forces with art forms to create more sophisticated types of artificial life systems.

work citation

 Vensa, Victoria. "Biotechnology and Art." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 18 Sept. 2013. Web. 9 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaThVnA1kyg>

 Vensa, Victoria. "Biotechnology and Art Part 2." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May 2012. Web. 9 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdSt-Hjyi2I&list=PL9DBF43664EAC8BC7> 

 "Joe David: Genesthetics." Design|Media Art: Genetics and Culture. Viewingspace. Web. 8 May 2015.<http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w03/davis_joe.htm>

Vensa, Victoria. "Biotechnology and Art Part 4." Youtube. Uconlineprogram, 17 May. 2012. Web. 9 May<https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL9DBF43664EAC8BC7&v=2qSc72u9KhI#t=121>

 Schuler, Barry. "Barry Schuler: Genomics 101." TED. TED Conference, 1 June 2008. Web. 8 May 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schuler_genomics_101?language=en#t-1131907>