Week 6 Biotech+Art

May 12, 2017

At the beginning of this week’s lecture, professor Vesna mentioned that biotechnology and art is a controversial area. After viewing all the lectures and readings, I found myself in the same situation. To me, biotechnology is a rising discipline that will probably be the leading industry in the 21^st century. Indeed, there have been great breakthroughs in curing diseases and increasing agricultural productivity, improving the quality of our life. However, when art is associated with biotechnology, I am not so confident that the same conclusion can be drawn.

Biotechnology itself is a very controversial area due to its unforeseen consequences and the fact that most of the experiments are carried out on animals. It to some extent breaks the balance of nature by altering the original compositions of creatures. But science is about trial and error and if we accept this fact, biotechnology for scientific purposes is still probably legitimate. However, if the purposes for changing the structure of the biological world are only artistic, then we may not be in the right direction. In her lecture, professor Vesna introduced a group called Symbiotica, which consists of artists working in science lab, specifically biology labs. One of its member, Orlan, came up with idea of the harlequin coat, which is a coat made of colored skins. To be honest, I feel really uncomfortable about this art piece since according to my understanding, these skins come from humans instead of animals. To me this art piece causes fear instead of beauty.

Another example is Stelarc’s third ear on his arm. Again, I cannot feel any sense of beauty or artistry from this piece. Organ transplant should be meant for curing diseases by replacing dead organs with healthy ones. Simply transplanting an ear onto one’s arm certainly does not improve his health but to some extent makes him unnatural.

But finally, we have Edward Steichen and George Gessert who worked on breeding plants into art forms. Through genetic means they were able to create beautiful flowers. Hence I think it is possible for biotechnologies to be used for artistic purposes, but probably in very limited sense.