Week 6: Biotech and Art

Art scenes grown from a petri dish
Photo by Suzanne Anker (2016)

            Bioart is an artform that uses biological beings and biological techniques to create art. Biology as a hard science investigates nature and how it functions. Bioart uses similar techniques as the hard science of biology but uses those techniques to express an artist’s intentions and thoughts or to evoke a response from an audience. Because bioart manipulates life in a way that might not necessarily be for investigative purposes, it becomes controversial at times.

Picture of the GFP Bunny glowing
Photo by Chrystelle Fontaine (2000)

Eduardo Kac was the artist behind the artwork “GFP Bunny” which involved genetically modifying a rabbit to be albino and express a green fluorescent protein (GFP) so that the entire rabbit would glow green if exposed to UV light. The experiment itself served no scientific purpose as GFP had already been proven to be useful in research as a marker protein. Many animal rights organizations opposed this artwork as it was thought to be cruel to the rabbit. Scientists also commented on the artwork as an interesting but also said that it served no real scientific purpose. However, as an artistic piece it is particularly impactful because manipulating another living organism affects how we think of ourselves because we too are living organisms and the manipulations done on another organism could be done on us.

An example of bioart, encoding an image into DNA
Image by Joe Davis (1996)

I consider the “GFP Bunny” as a valid artistic expression because the artist behind the manipulations had specific intentions he was trying to get across while creating the “GFP Bunny”. Some of the reasons behind the artwork was to open the dialogue between scientists and artists as well as questioning the ethics and social impact of genetic engineering. However, there should be a limit to what is acceptable as art and what is not, especially if the artwork is manipulating life itself. The manipulation itself is not inherently bad as humans have been doing genetic manipulations for millennia in the form of selective breeding. I believe the issue is that many of the modern manipulations are not as subtle as selective breeding and have a significant impact on life and could cause severe problems for the lifeforms being manipulated. It is one thing to make small changes to convey a certain idea, but it is another to go to any means to produce the perfect masterwork regardless of the consequences.

References

Anker, Suzanne. Vanitas. 2016, http://suzanneanker.com/blog/2015/04/07/genspace-talks-suzanne-anker-where-is-the-art-in-bio-art/. Accessed 14 May 2018.

Davis, Joe. Microvenus. 1996, https://www.jstor.org/stable/777811?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. Accessed 14 May 2018.

Fontaine, Chrystelle. Alba The GFP Bunny. 2000, http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor. Accessed 14 May 2018.

Kac, Eduardo. "GFP BUNNY". Ekac.Org, 2000, http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor. Accessed 14 May 2018.

Kelty, Christopher. "Outlaw, Hackers, Victorian Amateurs: Diagnosing Public Participation In The Life Sciences Today". Journal Of Scientific Communication, no. 1, 2010, Accessed 14 May 2018.

Levy, Ellen. "Defining Life: Artists Challenge Conventional Classifications". Accessed 14 May 2018.

Stutz, Bruce. "Wanted: GM Seeds For Study". Seedmagazine.Com, 2010, http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/wanted_gm_seeds_for_study/. Accessed 14 May 2018.

Yetisen, Ali K. et al. "Bioart". Trends In Biotechnology, vol 33, no. 12, 2015, pp. 724-734. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2015.09.011. Accessed 14 May 2018.