BioArt

*the techniques (how it is done)

-     BioArt is an art practice where humans work with live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes such as biotechnology (including technologies such as genetic engineering, tissue culture, and cloning) the artworks are produced in laboratories, galleries, or artists' studios.

-     The laboratory work can pose a challenge to the artist, at first, as the environment is often foreign to the artist. While some artists have prior scientific training, others must be trained to perform the procedures or work in tandem with scientists who can perform the tasks that are required. Bio artists often use formations relating to or engaged with science and scientific practices, such as working with bacteria or live-tissue.

-      Much of the art involves tissue-culturing and transgenics, a term for a variety of genetic engineering processes through which genetic material from one organism is altered by the addition of synthesized or transplanted genetic material from another organism.

*the interface

            - there are multiple interfaces you could use to make your own piece of bio art. You would definitely need to create it in an environment that can support whatever life it is that you are using though. For example, if you are using some kind of fluorescent bacteria, you would need to place the bacteria in a petri dish or something that can contain and preserve the bacteria.


*the development


The phrase "BioArt" was coined by Eduardo Kac in 1997 in relation to his artwork Time Capsule. Although it originated at the end of the 20th century through the works of pioneers like Joe Davis and artists at SymbioticA,

Joe Davis: research affiliate in the Department of Biology at MIT and in the George Church Laboratory at Harvard Medical School.

•   Audio Microscope - a microscope that translates light information into sound allowing you to "hear" living cells, each with its own "acoustic signature."

•   Experiments with how E. coli respond to jazz, and other sounds, with Andrew Zaretsky

•   Putting a map of the Milky Way into the ear of a transgenic mouse

•   "Primordial" clocks - a project surrounding a theory that life spontaneously self-assembled

-     the peak (has it already happened?)


BioArt started to be more widely practiced in the beginning of the 21st century, though it was created in the late 90s.

-     an example

Eduardo Kac:

Alba, the creation of a green-fluorescent rabbit. Kac took a rabbit and implanted it with a Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) found in jellyfish. When placed under a blue light, the rabbit glowed a bright, eerie green.


*speculate wildly about the future

I think that BioArt could be very big, because it blends biology with art, and I think that could be very interesting to people in the same way that freak shows are. There’s something about the twistedness of it that grabs our attention and pulls it forward. For that reason, I think BioArt will succeed in the future. The only thing I can see stopping it are animal rights activists, accusing these BioArtists of cruelty against living organisms for personal gain. Personally, I think BioArt is pretty bizarre, but I can respect it for what it is, and what it’s intending to do, which is to gain attention. It certainly has mine.