Eduardo Kac Site
Amy M Youngs
Extracts from the article:
"The longstanding artistic tradition of creating life-like artworks evolves as technology grows from paint and chisels to computers and DNA manipulation. Artists are now able to create digital works that engage in the processes of life and biological works that exist as art and actual life. The author examines the differing ways in which artificial life and biological artworks smear the boundaries between what is considered natural and unnatural, human and nature, and explores the role biological art might play in relocating humanity within the complex ecological systems of life, rather than above or below it."
There is a desire to break down the barriers between art and living reality.
"For the first time the word organic ceases to be an unobtainable ideal held out to the artist; following in the wake of cybernetic technology, systems with organic properties will lead to "sculpture" - if it can be called that - rivaling the attributes of intelligent life."
Jack Burnham (Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century (New York: George Braziller, 1968), p. 320)
"In his book Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century, written in 1968, Jack Burnham predicted the possibility that artists could create amazingly lifelike artworks. He traced this artistic impulse back to the idealized human forms of Greek sculpture, followed by clockwork automata, early kinetic art, and finally the robot and cyborg art of the 1960s. He clearly predicted the artificial life art forms that are being created in silicon today, but he did not foresee the art of creating new biological life forms. Now that genetic engineering companies are bringing forth a cornucopia of new life forms, I wonder about extending into the biological realm Burnham's idea that future artworks might be "capable of intelligent intercourse with their creators.
At this point the field of genetic engineering is too specialized and expensive to be considered as a viable medium for most artists. So it is the genetic engineers who are doing almost all of the creating, while the rest of us on the sidelines are watching with great interest, as traditional species barriers are being breached before our eyes. We have seen sheep-goat chimeras, the blending of tobacco plants with firefly genes, producing luminous plants, and a variety of animals and plants with human genes inserted into them. Presumably these freakish creatures will end up helping humanity by enabling us to make cheaper, better medicines, cure famine and causing the stock market to rise forever. The other presumption is that genetic engineering will disrupt the delicate balance of life and lead to environmental destruction. As an artist, however, I am not as interested in the polarities of this debate as I am in the ways that genetically engineered organisms challenge deeply held convictions about what is "natural" and where humankind stands as the DNA is reshuffled."
This is a very important point, that it is due to genetic modification and technological advancement it has risen many issues. I have not only seen this is artworks, but also in mainstream film and cinema. Even 80's films such as Robocop, Terminator and Blade Runner, reflect the fears of combining biology and technology, the artificial with natural human like attributes. I also think the fears also stem from the fact that we (society) do not have control over these manipulations and it is the governments and genetic scientists that have the control. Biotechnology has a strong political power behind it.
"to break down the psychic and physical barriers between art and living reality." - Burnham
Why Not Cute, Colorful Animals?
So "why is it that dogs aren't yet blue with red spots, and that horses don't yet radiate phosphorescent colors over the nocturnal meadows of the land?". Over a decade has passed since that question was posed in Artforum by writer Vilem Flusser, and still we do not see these creatures being created by artists. Artificial-life artists could certainly mock up this kind of scenario in digital form, but it is still out of the reach of artists working with biological genetics. The creation of new mammalian life forms has certainly occurred in the world of science, but no artists have been able to participate as of yet. This will likely change as the tools and techniques become more available and we all become accustomed to the new ways of creating life. The creation of a transgenic animal -- a dog that glows with the green fluorescent protein of a jellyfish -- has been proposed by artist Eduardo Kac in his article "Transgenic Art." A project like this will require a lab with specialized equipment, but since this protein has already successfully been incorporated into mammalian cells, such an animal is entirely possible [15]. The artist's desire to genetically alter a dog may at first seem immoral, until, perhaps, one considers that dogs did not exist before humans genetically altered them through the selective breeding of wolves. While Kac's project has remained unrealized, he has recently succeeded in the creation of a transgenic rabbit that glows green under special lighting. Kac considers his rabbit an artwork, a family pet (named Alba), and an instigator of dialogue on issues such as genetic engineering, biodiversity, normalcy, heterogeneity, purity, and interspecies communication [16].
Conclusion of the article
Whether the art of today has lived up to Jack Burnham's predictions of intelligent interaction between humans and nature may be in question, but there is no doubt that genetic artists have been able to create works that do, as he says, "break down the psychic and physical barriers between art and living reality."
As the rhetoric of the biotechnology industry focuses on the control of biology for the good of humanity, the manipulation of DNA to create new biological life forms seems to assert the superiority of humans over the rest of life on earth. However, the intentions of the artists who have altered biology in their work are not the same as those of the biotech industry, and their artworks do not reinforce the hierarchy that places humanity at the apex. In fact much of their work deeply celebrates nonhuman life while acknowledging -- even pointing to -- humanity's interconnection with it. Perhaps this kind of work has the potential to do what some environmental thinkers believe is imperative: relocate humanity within the complex ecological systems of life rather than above or below it.
Notes
Complexity theory of the relationship between physical and technological systems -
When data is collected from the human body for example genes, there is a link between biological systems and code. There is this fusion of data that goes beyond the material, build and gambled as part of experiment.
There is a link between all of this and money. It seems to be able to have the power to be able to make a difference genetically, there needs to be a lot of money involved.
Ethics are gone, don't know when life begins, cutting into things - moment you cut into it is 'dead' - shadow side to technology and we are aware of it, it plays on human fears.
- When dealing with sometime that is human there needs to be the consent from something living.
Kathleen suggesting rather than using the typical animals for my hybrids to look into other species from different levels of evolution. The use of the less obvious 'ugly bug' creatures such as catfish, seahorse with frills, which catches us by surprise and makes more of a visual impact.
The fact that we will be able to design our own traits is getting closer. Not only is there ideas of being about to change our babies appearance, but also make neurological advancements. It questions the human psyche, and how like a computer, our minds can be programmed and made and certain way. The code in the computer compared with the code from the genes in our cells.
Common living room - take the idea that all matter is alive, matter is acting on use, giving us ideas. Matter and us creating sensibilities. AI might detach itself from humans. When we build these systems and they start to converge, and we start to loose control and the material takes over itself.
Designer babies - neurological advancements -frilly seahorse - designing our traits
Contemporary biological advances
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