Week 6

Biotech and Art

As a way of collaboration between science and art, a number of artists have entered the science labs to get involved in modern technology development. Bioart is a new branch of art that is created during the process. Bioart generally refers to the use of living tissues, bacteria and organism in creating intriguing and often shocking work of art. Artists try to integrate the advanced biotechnology into creative living art work. I found the works by Suzanne Anker really interesting. She works in a variety of mediums ranging from digital sculpture and installation to large-scale photography to plants grown by LED lights. Using different color of LED lights, people can manipulate the auxin in plants and get special shapes.

Plants that are grown in culture medium with LED lights.

(http://www.suzanneanker.com/artwork/?wppa-album=2&wppa-photo=296&wppa-occur=1)

Biotechnology is also used in modification of food. People no longer depend on specific natural environment to obtain food sources. Most of food can now be completely grown in laboratory, and with the understanding of gene, it is even possible to improve the quality of food and make it look fantastic. 

Rainbow loom consists of cultured plants.

(http://www.suzanneanker.com/artwork/?wppa-album=24&wppa-photo=477&wppa-occur=1)

It is hard to believe that even meat can be cultured by tissue engineering using stem cells. Several scientists have implemented the process of using stem cells to produce food meat. For example, Dr. Mark Post used stem cells from cow shoulder muscle to produce meat used in a hamburger. The hamburger was tasted by several people and the feedback was that the meat was dry and a bit lacking in flavor.

Beef cultured in petri dish using stem cells.

Citation/Sources

1.     Mitchell, Robert. Bioart and the Vitality of Media. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press, 2010.

2.     Fountain, Henry. “A Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test”, The New York Times (2013).

3.     Anker Suzanne. Bioart works.2015. <http://www.suzanneanker.com>.

4.     Post, Mark J. "Cultured meat from stem cells: Challenges and prospects."Meat Science 92.3 (2012): 297-301.

5.     Walden Stephanie. “BioArt: Is It Art? Is It Science? Is It the Future?”, Mashable (2013).

< http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/cutpastegrow-bioart/ >.

6.     Vesna, Victoria. Lecture. DESMA 9. Web. 6 May. 2015.