Signs of Life Response
In his book Signs of Life, Eduardo Kac discusses the connections between biotechnology and art. The introduction begins with a discussion of the history of bioart, which began with depictions of “grotesque” deformed people and illustrations of imagined “monsters.” Kac challenges us to wonder, what separates the “grotesque” from the “beautiful”, as both are separated from “average” by their uniqueness, and has our increase in genetic engineering simply led from imagining “monsters” to creating them? Is a bunny that glows beautiful? Is a genetically modified strain of corn that can keep thousands of people from starving a monster? How about a human who has been genetically engineered to be “perfect,” as it could be considered both beautiful and a monster.
The social and societal points this brings up are obviously huge. It’s impossible to bring up such topics as genetic engineering or stem cells without hearing strong opinions from both sides. Bioart is a good way to bring this to the forefront and make people notice, and hopefully ask these questions of themselves and really think about the answers.
Kac’s brief discussion of Darwin was truly fascinating. The link between capitalism and natural selection is one that had never occurred to me, but after having it pointed out, seems almost inherently obvious. Which brings up several questions: would Darwin have thought of this if it wasn’t the predominant economic thought process? Would anyone have accepted it? Did natural selection lead to capitalism?
I feel more personally affected, however, by the discussions of modern biological techniques as means of creating art as opposed to pondering these great philosophical questions Kac brings up. He quotes Edward Steichen, the first person to actually use genetics as a medium of art when he hybridized flowers and treated them with chemicals to make them undergo mutations, as saying “the science of heredity when applied to plant breeding, which has as its ultimate purpose the aesthetic appeal of beauty, is a creative art.”
While Steichen may have a point, and several valid examples can be called to mind (genetically modifying fruits and vegetables to have more vibrant colors, for example) the practicalities of DNA make it a poor medium for art in some ways. Maybe it’s the biology student coming out in me, coupled with the fact that we just had an exam over DNA transcription and translation tonight, but when reading about Kac’s “Genesis” project, instead of being struck by the profound ability of bacteria to modify the words of the Bible giving humans control over everything, or the structuring of a protein based on these words in Morse code and how ironic it was to use the technology to create something useless, I was asking the questions “did the protein created begin at a start codon, or just at the beginning of the sentence?” “well what would happen if there was a stop codon somewhere in there, did the protein just end there or does it keep going?” “which end is 3′ and which is 5′ of the DNA, and was that taken into account when the protein synthesis was performed?” “would the antiparallel strand, if translated into Morse code and then words, spell out anything?” “was this inserted into a bacteria as a cyclical DNA or a helix?”
It was very intriguing to see things I’ve done myself in lab translated into the artistic world, and it brought up several of the questions asked in the What is Art? reading. I have before looked at a representation of a molecule or protein and thought that they were really beautiful molecules, but because they occur naturally, can they still be considered art? Were the luminescent bacteria I grew in a lab in my AP Biology lab art, just as Kac’s GFP Bunny was, or does one need to declare art as the intent, rather than science, for it to be art? Can art be a byproduct of science? Can science be a byproduct of art?
I feel that overall, though, many aspects of bioart frustrated me despite the fascination they held. Maybe it’s because all my professors throw around phrases like “oh yeah, that’s not an expensive piece of equipment anymore, now you can get them for around 25,000 dollars” or “so each of those micropipetters you have cost about as much as a new iPhone” without blinking, but I feel that resources of this magnitude were used in creating essentially useless genes and proteins. This thought makes me feel really guilty, because I realize that art is never useless as long as it makes you think (which clearly, the bio-art as a whole brought up a bunch of questions for me) but these are technologies that have the potential to save lives. While art and research can surely coexist, other means of artistic expression are available, while research is not always so fortunate.
I also took issue with the lack of hard scientific data in the reading. I assume that Kac was not trained as a biologist, but as a scientist I’m almost constantly left questioning some point. But then, perhaps that was his goal, as now I’m thinking more and more about what I read and the implications in society it has, as well as about the science.
Questions for consideration:
1. What separates the beautiful and the grotesque?
2. Are social theories just advanced biological theories? If so, how far separated are we from other species that “lack the ability to reason”?
3. Can art be a byproduct of science? Can science be a byproduct of art?