Alexis Rockman - Concept Research

The Farm (2000)

My main artist inspiration for looking into GM and cloning based bio-art is Alexis Rockman. He has made series of art based on evolution, animals, and biological sciences, raising discussion on possibly outcomes of the future, and whether these are positive or negative outcomes.

The Farm 2000
The image shows familiar farm animals and how they may look in the future due to bioengineering.
The vegetables are bioengineered to grow in certain shapes ideal for packaging and shipping.
Was also presented as a new york citing advertising hoarding in a project called DNAid mounted by the art group Creative Time. I really like this particular piece, as even though there is a lot going on, it raises many subjects regarding the change in farming, and how we will continue to genetically modify plants and animals in the future. Its influenced by a broad range of pressures to do with human consumption, aesthetics, domesticated and medical applications.

Artist statement from Paradise Now:

"My artworks are information-rich depictions of how our culture perceives and interacts with plants and animals, and the role culture plays in influencing the direction of natural history.

The Farm contextualizes the biotech industry's explosive advances in genetic engineering within the history of agriculture, breeding, and artificial selection in general. The image, a wide-angle view of a cultivated soybean field, is constructed to be read from left to right. The image begins with the ancestral versions of internationally familiar animals, the cow, pig, and chicken, and moves across to an informed speculation about how they might look in the future. Also included are geometrically transformed vegetables and familiar images relating to the history of genetics. In The Farm I am interested in how the present and the future look of things are influenced by a broad range of pressures- human consumption, aesthetics, domestication, and medical applications among them. The flora and fauna of the farm are easily recognizable; they are, at the same time, in danger of losing their ancestral identities. "

Sea World

Rockman likes to play with our expectations of what's normal. In the painting called Sea World, an audience watches as a collection of marine animals performs tricks, but the animals are nothing like the killer whales and dolphins we're used to seeing.

"They're familiar because of their roles," says Rockman. "Some of them are familiar from paleontological history. You have a Dunkleosteus, which to me is the most frightening predator in history. It's a Devonian fish that's now, luckily for humans, extinct, but it was enormous and very frightening."

The sea creatures, somehow restored to life in a theme park, hint at a future where cloning makes re-creating extinct animals possible.

Soccer

In my opinion this piece displays the subjects of evolution as well as genetic modification of humans. Due to our roles in society, such as being a sportsman, it suggests if we will stretch to the extent of modifying ourselves to become better at things, or if we will just evolve to become this. This is suggested by the mans legs being almost horse or kangaroo like to jump higher, a tail to balance better, a bigger hard to be able to last longer when moving and webbed hands to be able to block the ball.