In the Presence of the BodyBoryana Rossa

The artists who participate in this show work in the emerging field of bio-art, an essential part of the wider genre of art and science collaboration. Like any emerging field, bio-art has gone through the process of self definition surprisingly fast and reached the point where some already want it to be considered “just art”.

In "Bio Art - Taxonomy of an Etymological Monster Jens Houser writes:

“Bio Art does not permit itself to be nailed down with a hard and fast definition of the procedures or materials that it must employ. Even if we can consider the "manipulation of the mechanisms of life" as its medium, this assumes a very wide variety of forms both with respect to discourse and technique.” (1)

Isn’t this because there is nothing new about the artist being a scientist and the scientist being an artist? Isn't this because both the artist and the scientist (or biologist) create? Or is there something else?

This exhibition presents works by artists for whom the common ground of expression is the body. This is the body that has physical characteristics and specifications that are manipulated, utilized and transformed. This “body” is not merely a lingusitic construction: it can be touched, smelled, seen, tasted. This body lives, moves, reacts, kicks, shouts, sings, dies and rots. This body sometimes consists of just a handful of cells, sometimes it is a complex relationship of living biological matter with mechanical and electronic extentions, sometimes it is the human body that seems to be so familiar…

The body is common subject for both artists and scientists. Artists have been trying to understand the construction of bodies, not only to represent them better, but to know how and why they function. Isn’t this also what scientists do? Even if the body is not the subject of the art, its recepient or victim no doubt will be someone’s body. Almost everything we--scientists or artists--do is with or for our bodies. Isn't the ultimate recipient of scientific research is the human body?

In this exhibition this notion of “the body” is explored through works made by artists from arround the world. These artists engage with "wet biology" practices like tissue culturing and genetic engineering, not only to create their artworks, but also to understand and critically evaluate the application of scientific research in the society. Oron Catz and Ionat Zurr (SymbioticA Research Lab), Critical Art Ensemble and Rich Pell, Jennifer Willet and Shawn Bailey (Bioteknica) and Paul Vanouse produce work that raises questions about the corporate marketing of the biological.

The ethics of the “newly created bodies” and their interaction with the anthropocentric society are addressed in the work of Dimitry Bulatov and Eduardo Kac and in the long term collaborative project MEART the Semi Living Artist, undertaken by Guy Ben-Ary, Phill Gamblen from SymbioticA Research Lab and Douglas Bakkum from Steve Potter’s Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology. The ethics of the familiar and "good old” human, animal and plant bodies we see emphasized in works by Kathy High, Julia Reodica, Adam Zaretsky and Barbara Groves, and in the installation Living Screen by Guy Ben-Ary, Tanja Visosevic and Bruce Murphy from SymbioticA Research Lab.

The poetics of the “grinded, frozen, burned, sliced” body, cut in parts in order to be known better and re-assembled with a new order that has never existed before, we see in projects like MEART and the Snow Flake by Oleg Mavromatti and Boryana Rossa (Ultrafuturo), and in works by Anton Terziev (Ultrafuturo), Stelarc and Nina Sellar, and the Russian collective Where are the Dogs Running. These projects manifest the artist/scientist as the creator of “unseen” structures, but also as someone who makes visible the responsibility that any technological intervention on the body gathers.

These issues overlap also because in all of these works the body of the artist participates as a material for, or an executor, of the art/science experiment. Since all these works involve the use of “biological material” (including the body of the artist), they can be shown only as “bio-performances”. In order to see the living work, there is a need that the “real” body performs. After the body dissapears, the art work doesn’t exist any more. Alternatively this performance can then be shown as documentation. Isn’t it similar to what scientists do in order to show their work in the lab? This show focuses on documentation as an evidence of the living work, but also documentation as “the work of art” itself. ------

1. Hauser, Jens. "Bio Art - Taxonomy of an Etymological Monster", in Ars Electronica 2005.

MEART the Semi Living Artist, video, images and scientific reports 2003-2005 (will be shown at the Bio Tech Center from April 23th, 2007)www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au

Phil Gamblen, Guy Ben Ary, Douglas Bakkum (SymbioticA - The Art & Science Collaborative Research Lab, University of WA), Dr. Steve Potter's Lab (Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology), Boryana Rossa, Oleg Mavromatti (Ultrafuturo)

MEART – The Semi Living Artist is a geographically detached, bio-cybernetic research and development project exploring aspects of creativity and artistry in the age of new biological technologies. It was developed and hosted by SymbioticA - The Art & Science Collaborative Research Lab, University of Western Australia.

MEART is an installation distributed between two (or more) locations in the world. Its “brain” consists of cultured nerve cells that grow and live in a neuro-engineering lab, in Georgia institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA (Dr. Steve Potter's lab). Its “body” is a robotic drawing arm that is capable of producing two-dimensional drawings. The “brain” and the “body” communicate in real time when MEART is shown live in a gallery.

MEART is assembled from:

'Wetware' – neurons from embryonic rat cortex grown over a Multi Electrode Array.'Hardware' – the robotic drawing arm'Software' – that interfaces between the wetware and the hardware.The Internet is used to mediate between its components and overcome its geographical detachment.

MEART is suggesting future scenarios where humans will create/grow/manufacture intuitive and creative “thinking entities” that could be intelligent and unpredictable beings. They may be created by humans for anthropocentric use, but as they will be creative and unpredictable they might not necessarily stay the way they were originally intended.MEART is suggesting future scenarios where humans will create/grow/manufacture intuitive and creative “thinking entities” that develop into intelligent and unpredictable beings. They may be created by humans for anthropocentric use, but as they will be creative and unpredictable they might not necessarily stay the way they were originally intended. This work explores questions such as: What is creativity? According to what criteria do we evaluate it? Can we move away from our anthropocentric thinking about the “only human” creative capability? Can we recognize the creativity of The Other we don’t know? How does our definition of creativity relate to what we think intelligence is?

There are two stages of the project that have different sources of “inspiration” for the robot. These two stages are “The Portrait Series” and “The Black Square.”

MEART the Semi Living artist and the Snow Flake, video 2007www.roboriada.org

Boryana Rossa, Guy Ben-Ary and Oleg Mavromatti (Ultrafuturo)

MEART & the Black Square (exhibited in ART Digital 2004, the first Moscow Biannale for Contemporary Art)

The Black Square is the fourth phase of MEART, developed in collaboration with The Ultrafuturo Group. This phase connects MEART with the ideas of Suprematism, re-discovered as visionary for the development of new technology. In this installation MEART is taking its inspiration from Malevich’s painting “the Black Square. ” MEART is not drawing gallery visitor’s portraits like in the first three phases.

The Black Square is considered to be the beginning of a new and redefined art. The Suprematist paintings are projects for and instruments of a new universe and a new system of the world. The Suprematist canvases were sign-projects, containing images of the technical organisms of the future Suprematist world. In our case MEART is not only a “project” but already a real organism, an organism existing in reality, a realized project of the futurist’s/Suprematist’s dreams.

In his “Overturn. The path of art without creativity” (newspaper 'Anarchy', 1918), Malevich writes:

“Artists have been given a gift with their art to extend the substance of life, but not to overload it with useless copies and representations. No matter how well the artist imitates, his artworks will be lifeless, but when he creates a new form and implements it, only then will this form have life and truth. If this happens, the saying that “art is a lie” will have no reason to exist.”

The Black Square constitute s both “all” and “nothing” - both “non-objectivity” and “omni-objectivity”. In Suprematist theory it represents the embryo of all possibilities. In other words, the Black Square could be called “the creative particle” (cell) of every single existing image. Digital technology gives us another name for the Black Square – the Pixel.

Until the forth phase MEART has been inspired by visitors to the gallery and has been drawing their portraits. In this phase (exhibited in ART Digital 2004), MEART is drawing ‘the black square’ not only for its visual properties but also for its conceptual value..

Ultrafuturo also initiated MEART and the Snow Flake, 2006 a cryogenic sub–project, for which they froze the "brain" of MEART. It “sleeps” in its chamber like some humans do too, expecting to be unfrozen when “the time has come”.

MEART and the Snow Flake video produced by Ultrafuturo (Boryana Rossa and Oleg Mavromatti)

The Pig Wings Project by the Tissue Culture & Art Project, video 2002 www.tca.uwa.edu.au

Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, and Guy Ben-Ary (SymbioticA Research Group)

Advances in bio-medical technologies such as tissue engineering, xenotransplantation, and genomics promise to render the living body as a malleable mass. The rhetoric used by private and public developers as well as the media have created public anticipation for less than realistic outcomes. The full effects of these powerful technologies on the body and society have, in most cases, only superficially discussed. Deciphering the human genetic code, and the creation of genetically modified pigs for the purpose of transplanting their organs into to humans (xenotransplantation) opens up a space for the creation of ambiguous chimeras. The Pig Wings project was set to explore this space. Winged bodies (both animal and human) have been used in most cultures and throughout history. Usually, the kind of wings represented the creature (chimeras) as either good/angelic (bird-wing) or evil/satanic (bat-wing). There is yet another solution to flight in vertebrates which seems to be mostly free of cultural values - that of the Pterosaurs. We have used tissue engineering and stem cell technologies in order to grow pig bone tissue in the shape of these three sets of wings. The Pig Wings installation presents the first ever wing shaped objects grown using living pig tissue, alongside the environment in which such endeavour can take place. This absurd work presents some serious ethical questions regarding a near future where semi-living objects (objects which are partly alive and partly constructed) exists and animal organs will be transplanted into humans. What kind of relationships we will form with such objects? How are we going to treat animals with human DNA? How will we treat humans with animal parts? What will happen when these technologies will be used for purposes other then strictly saving life?

Pig Wings is made in Australia

A film by Jens Hauser

Realisation: Jens Hauser

Cameraa: Darrell BrownJens Hauser

Sound: Paul ZanettiEditing: Nepomuk NitschkePostproduction: Equipe technique Institut National de l'Audiovisuel

ZDF, Arte, Australian Council, Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts

Made for the conference: "Art, Biologie et Nouvelles Technologies: "La représentation du vivant à l'ère numérique", coorganisé par l'Université Paris 1 / La Sorbonne et l'INA, décembre 2002

Living Screen, video and images 2007http://www.biokino.net

Tanya Visocevic, Guy Ben Ary, Bruce Murphy (SymbioticA Research Group)

The Living Screen project produces new poetics, made possible by fusing bio-technology into a living cinematic apparatus. It embodies and anticipates renewed cinematic techniques and modes of expression, while also offering an alternative approach to understanding Bio-Art, which is, ‘Bio-Art as a Freak Show’.The project re-travels early cinema history and brings film theory into play to approach ones engagement with a Bio-Kino. Screens are grown or scavenged from different tissue sources and Nano-Movies are projected over these living canvases, via the Bio-Projector. (The projection is 25-50 µ (microns) in size)The Living Screen is a new species, a living cinematic apparatus. When we gaze through it, we are engaging with a machine-organism. This work is a research and development project exploring what occurs when we cinematically engage with a living screen. It employs film theory to bring into question ones spectatorship with Bio-Kino.The screens are alive, transform, react and change over time and eventually die. Therefore, it contort the projected Nano-Movie in as yet – unknown ways, and confront the spectators with issues such as life, death, virtuality and reality.There are 4 elements to the LIVING SCREEN project:

THE BIO-PROJECTOR - is fashioned on the Kinetoscope and the Kinetoscope’s similarities to a coffin. It is the machinery of the cinematic apparatus that includes the projector device, the microscope and the optical lenses. THE LIVING SCREEN - functions as part of the cinematic apparatus.  Different types of screens [prepared and obtained from varying tissue cultures] are projected onto, each one of them symbolic in a different way. The properties of these screens inform the content of the projected Nano-Movies.THE NANO-MOVIES - are conceptually linked the living screen that they are being projected onto (see "The Monstrous Other" installation)THE SPECTATOR – You! When U peer through the Bio-Projector, and gaze at the Nano-Movie being projected onto the Living Screen, you become the final ingredient in this Bio-Kino apparatus.The combination of film theory and bio-art is as yet unexplored from our particular approach. In overlaying digital pixels over biological pixels we intend to explore the tension between the inanimate and the animate and the digital versus the biological. We hope that the spectators will undergo a powerful engagement with the living screen. This projection chooses the raw, fleshy, unprocessed aesthetics over the hyperrealism of the digital.The Living Screen has many connections to primitive cinema, early motion pictures that pre-date 1905 that fall under the category of the ‘cinema of attractions’. Tom Gunning defines the ‘cinema of attractions’ as a form of confrontation that addresses the audience directly. “Rather than being an involvement with narrative action or empathy with character psychology, the cinema of attractions solicits a highly conscious awareness of the film image engaging with the viewers’ curiosity.”The screens will transform, react and change over time and eventually die. This is the confrontation that the spectator must face. “Confrontation rules the ‘cinema of attractions’ in both the form of its films and their mode of exhibition. The directness of this act of display allows an emphasis of the thrill itself – the immediate reaction of the viewer.” What thrill will the spectator receive when it clearly confronts the spectator about life, death and the Other.Fairgrounds and vaudeville houses were where early cinema found its audiences. It was also a form of safe house for the Other. With Bio-Art proliferating throughout the world, the art galleries of today are no less a freak show, as is The Living Screen.

The Eighth Day, video 2002 www.ekac.org/8thday.html

Eduardo Kac

The Eighth Day is a transgenic artwork that investigates the new ecology of fluorescent creatures that is evolving worldwide. The Eighth Day was shown from October 25 to November 2, 2001 at the Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe. While fluorescent creatures are being developed in isolation in laboratories, seen collectively they form the nucleus of a new and emerging synthetic bioluminescent system. The piece brings together living transgenic life forms and a biological robot (biobot) in an environment enclosed under a clear 4 foot diameter Plexiglas dome, thus making visible what it would be like if these creatures would in fact coexist in the world at large. The Eighth Day presents an expansion of biodiversity beyond wildtype life forms. As a self-contained artificial ecological system it resonates with the words in the title, which add one day to the period of creation of the world as narrated in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. All of the transgenic creatures in The Eighth Day are created through the cloning of a gene that codes for the production of green fluorescent protein (GFP). As a result, all creatures express the gene through bioluminescence visible with the naked eye. The transgenic creatures in The Eighth Day are GFP plants, GFP amoebae, GFP fish, and GFPmice

Credits:

The Eighth Day- Transgenic installation by Eduardo KacA film by Jens Hauser

Realisation: Jens Hauser

Camera: Martin Maxwell Fritz Bartl

Jens HauserSound: Stevan Pope

Hans-Jörg WeidenholzerEditing: Jan DottschadisPostproduction: Equipe technique Institut National de l'Audiovisuel

ZDF, Arizona State University – Institute for Studies in the Arts Made for the conference: "Art, Biologie et Nouvelles Technologies: "La représentation du vivant à l'ère numérique", coorganisé par l'Université Paris 1 / La Sorbonne et l'INA, décembre 2002

Latent Figure Protocol, video and images 2007 Paul Vanousewww.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/usr/pv28/lfp.html

Images, 2007:pET-11a 12:06:06pET-11a 01:15:07

In Latent Figure Protocol Vanouse utilizes DNA sequencing technologies to create representational images in which there is a tension between that which is portrayed/represented and the DNA materials used to generate it.  Not simply images of a sequence of DNA in a gel (like a DNA fingerprint), but rather DNA sequences in a gel specifically chosen to create a quasi-photographic representation of another subject.  For instance, using a 16-lane electrophoresis gel, it is possible to generate an iconic image by treating each lane as a row of pixels analogous to how early computer images were built using ascii characters.  Inserting DNA of known sizes into the beginning slot of each lane allows for a sequence of DNA bands in each lane to migrate at different speeds when voltage is applied, thus creating a 2-dimensional grid of DNA bands resembling a low-resolution bitmap image.

These images are reflexive of the subject from which the DNA was obtained.  A simple example is an iconic image of the universal copyright symbol (©) created using DNA from a transgenic crop such as Bt maize--such an image might connote the tensions surrounding not only private ownership of GMOs, but the status of organic life in general.

Conceptually, the artist is interested in using an imaging technology such as gel electrophoresis that is intended to be read "scientifically" (i.e. to obtain the genetic sequence of an organism) and through rigorous rewriting/recombination to allow it to be read "culturally" (i.e. as a representational image).  Vanouse is creating highly-charged, ambivalent objects belonging to the realms of both culture and science.  The short history of genomics already undermines this nineteenth century dualism (science/culture) as the process of "scientific" discovery and mapping is intimately related to the process of creating a "technological" innovation or a "creative" and patentable product or technique.

The LFP destabilizes the idea of objective evidence (as is reinforced by practices like DNA fingerprinting), and playfully undermines both essentialist notions of identity and determinist senses of biological destiny.  A DNA fingerprint or genetic portrait is often understood to be a single, unique human identifier.  Its complex patterns, an unchanging sentence written by mother nature herself that corresponds to each living creature.  In fact, there are thousands of different enzymes and primers that can be used to digest DNA and the bands/patterns that appear tell us as much about the enzyme as the subject that they appear to reproduce.  Thus, the DNA gel image IS a cultural construct that is often naturalized.  The LFP counters the "naturalness" of the DNA fingerprint/genetic portrait by taking advantage of the myriad ways of cutting, amplifying and re-presenting DNA information in culturally readable terms.

Teratological Prototypes, video, brochures and images 2007www.bioteknica.org

Shawn Bailey / Jennifer Willet (BIOTEKNICA)

BIOTEKNICA is a not-for-profit artist collective founded by Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet in 2000. Its purpose is to investigate critically the ethics, aesthetics, and technological potential for new art forms that lie at the intersection of the arts and the biological sciences.

BIOTEKNICA began as a media studies and interventionist art project, which projected its’ viewers into a future where designer organisms are generated on demand. The organisms produced by BIOTEKNICA are modeled on the Teratoma, an unusual cancerous growth containing multiple tissues like hair, skin, and nervous systems. Monstrous as this may seem, scientists today see the Teratoma as an instance of spontaneous cloning, and are conducting research on the Teratoma with the goal of developing future technologies. BIOTEKNICA both embraces and critiques biotechnology, considering the contradictions and deep underlying complexities that these technologies offer the future of humanity.

Since 2004 BIOTEKNICA has adopted a critical participatory methodology bringing our theoretical specimens out of their virtual environment and into biological science laboratories. Serving as Research Fellows at SymbioticA: the Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory at The University of Western Australia, Willet and Bailey began growing living prototypes that serve as new representations of the BIOTEKNICA product line. Here they commenced research with tissue culture protocols in the production of artwork as pioneered by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, of the internationally recognized Tissue Culture & Art Project, and SymbioticA founders. In 2006, they returned to SymbioticA – and worked in collaboration with Catts and Zurr on a new project entitled Teratological Prototypes. The four artists successfully constructed and exhibited a complex functional laboratory installation for ISEA: Zero One San Jose in the summer of 2006.

Most recently Bailey and Willet launched a solo exhibition called BIOTEKNICA: LiveLifeLab at the FOFA Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. With LiveLifeLab, Bailey and Willet conducted an ‘experiment’ of sorts (an art action) in which the two attempt to construct a functional tissue culture lab in the gallery, and continue their ongoing research into creating new living art forms for the duration of the installation. This work results from ongoing questions arising for artists working with specialized scientific protocols and confronts the problems of access – accountability – and specialization – that typically inhibit non-specialist engagement and understanding of the sciences.

We wish to thank our supporters:

SSHRC, The Social Science and Humanities Research Council of CanadaHEXAGRAMThe Canada Council for The ArtsCALQ, Conseil des arts et des lettres du QuébecSymbioticA, School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia The Banff Centre for the Arts

Embracing Animal, video 2004www.embracinganimal.com

Kathy High

Embracing Animal, (video documentation of installation) Exhibited Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston, MA,’04, and in “Becoming Animal”, MASS MoCA, North Admas, MA, 2005-06.

What is our animal nature? Embracing Animal is an inter-species ersatz scientific investigation of exchanges between people and animals looking at our fantasies and fears about animal/human exchanges. From transgenic rats to werewolves we harbor fears of “becoming animal” and losing control. This installation honors our confused relationship and exchange with animals.

Playing with Rats, video 2006www.embracinganimal.com

Kathy High

“We need to play– to cuddle up, to bear our fangs, to playfully threaten, to develop the rules of the game – to teach each other to heal.”

This is research from the field, tracking exchanges between human donor and transgenic rats – each mirroring the other’s disease (autoimmune disorders). Through the effects of illness, enriched habitat, holistic medicines, touch, and play, High worked with her transgenic rats to create new empathetic investigations.

"We were ill but we moved in together and then danced and played all night long. We all got better."

PCB-HB (Placental Cord Blood Home Brew), video 2007www.emutagen.com

Adam Zaretsky

Placental Cord Blood Home Brew is about the meticulously stunted sociallaboratory of paternal relationality and stem cell fetishism.

Placenta donated by Barbara Groves and Blu

Sterile Hood built by Julia Reodica

Thanks to RPI Biology, Kathy High and Len Radin

This is a document of my Cryogenically preserving of the the Placental Cord Blood our newborn at home. This includes collection, anticoagulation, mixing in cryopreservatives and slow freezing the samples.

There are a variety of experimental media and techniques which I tried:

I preserved twelve samples, six whole blood and six supernatant and buffycoat (that is to say leukocytes without red blood cells.) I substituted 5% solution of tapioca for Hydro Ethyl Starch. The cells were on ice in anticoagulant.

The samples were preserved in a mix of DMEM, 5% DMSO and either: Isotonic Solution, Gatorade Frost, Bubblegum Flavored Pedialyte (Electrolytes for Diarretic Babies), Isotonic Ginseng, Extra DMEM or Gatorade with 200 microliters of isotonic ginseng.

Body of Evidence, video 2006www.critical-art.net

Critical Art Ensemble w/ Rich Pell

Body of Evidence chronicles the state of artist Steven Kurt's home following an FBI raid on his home. Agents mistook the harmless laboratory he uses in developing biological art works for a biological terrorism lab. The video catalogs the confiscation of numerous items as well as the garbage (pizza boxes, soft drink containers, etc.) that the FBI agents left behind.

Kurtz is a member of the artist group Critical Art Ensemble and Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the State University of New York's University at Buffalo. His areas of focus are contemporary art history and theory as well as poststudio practices. Kurtz received an B.A. in Sociology in 1981 and an M.A. in Social Thought & Sociological Theory in 1983, both from the University of North Texas. As a student Kurtz together with Steve Barnes began a collaboration to make low-tech videos for which they used the signature Critical Art Ensemble. One year later, in 1987, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) transfored into a broad-based artist and activist collective. In 1990 Kurtz received a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Humanities from the Florida State University. His appointments included Associate Faculty, Goddard College (1993/94) and Graduate Faculty, Vermont College (1992/94), and Associate Faculty, Carnegie Mellon University (1995-2002). Steve Kurtz joined the Art Department at SUNY Buffalo in the Fall 2002.

Critical Art Ensemble is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations, who focus on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism. The collective has performed and produced a wide variety of projects for an international audience at diverse venues ranging from the street, to the museum, to the Internet. Critical Art Ensemble has also written five books: Their most recent works include The Molecular Invasion (Autonomedia, 2002) and Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public Health (Autonomedia, 2005).

Marching Plague, video 2006www.critical-art.net

Critical Art Ensemble

Filmed on location in Stornoway, Scotland, Critical Art Ensemble’s film Marching Plague presents a powerful critique of UK-US bioweapons research and addresses the paranoia surrounding bioterrorism. It centres on the recreation of secret sea trials conducted by the UK government in the 1950s.

In May 2004, FBI agents and the Joint Terrorism Task Force raided Critical Art Ensemble founder Steve Kurtz’s home, seizing art works and research materials for the Marching Plague project. The US government has yet to produce evidence that Kurtz is a bioterrorist, but they refuse to return the seized materials. Despite this, Kurtz has been able to reconstruct the research and produce Marching Plague, commissioned by The Arts Catalyst, and accompanying publication, published by Autonomedia (2006).

In the early 1950s, plague research trials took place off the Isle of Lewis at Stornoway Bay when, having already decided that germ warfare was of no use on land, the British military began to explore whether germs could be used as a naval weapon for ship-to-ship combat. Their tests found that germs were unreliable and unmanageable on the sea as they were on the land.

The film's ultimate aim is to address and dispel some of the public's fear of "bioterrorism", which has been greatly exaggerated since 9/11 (even though that attack had nothing to do with the use of biological agents). This exaggerated fear is based on incomplete awareness of the facts. Moreover, this type of fear has been exploited by governments over the past eight decades to initiate biological warfare programmes at enormous cost.

As the United States returns to an astronomically expensive policy of offensive and expanded germ warfare research, the film revisit the lessons already experienced in regard to the development and use of this technology. It tries to convey a more reasoned perspective about the level of risk to the public as well as the desirability of germ warfare weapons (even within the logic of the military) than is usually presented in more "sensational" fiction or even in television docu-dramas. Finally, the film aims to show how such programmes compete for the limited resources necessary for research in global public health, and emergent infectious disease.

Bioweapons experts and artists, including Heath Bunting and Kayle Brandon, join Steve Kurtz, Steve Barnes and Lucia Sommer of Critical Art Ensemble to discuss bioterrorism, the culture of fear and artistic censorship.

Senses Alert, power point presentation on video and images, 2000-2004Dmitry Bulatov

Static chimerical design patterned from tadpole Xenopus laevis. Simultaneous genetic marking of an artistic object by different colors (GFP-like proteins). The system acquires new lifetime aesthetic qualities. Acknowledgements. Modeling: P.Saveliev. Consultations, chimering: Dr. K.Lukjanov, Dr. J.Labas

In the period from 2000 to 2004, together with a group of specialists from D.Ivanovsky Institute of Virusology of the Russian Academy of Science I took part in the project to create living objects with pre-designed esthetic properties on the basis of genetic combinations non-existent in nature. Various technologies developed in genetic engineering were used in our research including transgenesis, that is, artificial transplantation of genes from one organism into another.

The phenomenon of bioluminescence (literally: living luminescence) was considered as one such desirable “esthetic” property. This is an ability of certain living organisms to emit phosphorescence of different color shades. In nature only a few species of bacteria, jellyfish, insects, etc., possess this property. The so-called “green fluorescent protein” (GFP) plays a key role in the process of bioluminescence.

As a result of our research we compiled a unique catalogue consisting of 30 different GFP-like proteins. They were all developed from non-fluorescent organisms such a soft, madreporal and mushroom corals, actinia, and the like. These proteins possessed a unique ability to fluoresce in all the sections of the visible spectrum: from blue-green to ruby-red. Thus the possibility in principal of a simultaneous genetic marking of selected artistic objects with different colors has been elaborated (the so-called “chimaera design”).

In 2001, as a result of these experiments some chimaera organisms as work of art were created for the first time in Russia. Implanted into their genome was the gene, borrowed from the Pacific actinia Anemonia Sulcata, which is responsible for the generation of light. For this transgenetic engineering project Xenopus laevis tadpoles were used. As a result of certain microinjections distinct fluorescence of the left and right parts of tadpoles’ bodies was obtained: respectively the green and the red. Further research showed that the transplanted information producing certain esthetic qualities was firmly fixed in the genotype of the chimaera organisms and was passed on unchanged to subsequent generations no more than two-four times. As a result of the so-called cumulative effect these properties were finally lost.

In other words, new generations of living objects no longer possessed the artificially created ability to fluoresce in the visible part of the spectrum. Moreover, in all the subsequent generations of these organisms numerous developmental deviations and various side effects were found.

In 2004, our research group came to the conclusion that further experiments in artificially creating living objects with pre-designed esthetic properties were not feasible. The directors of the project decreed that all the organisms, which have undergone genetic manipulations, should remain within the experimental and exhibition area and by no means they should be allowed to penetrate the outside world.

Lawn Chair, images 2002

Julia Reodica

“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. “Henry David Thoreau

Created by Julia Reodica for the group show, Chlorophilia – exhibited 2002 at the Exploratorium Art & Science Museum of San Francisco, California.

The intention of “Lawn Chair” was to have a living sculpture live for more than one month in exhibition. Initial research began with grass rooting studies on cotton-based materials to evaluate the ability for the wheat grass root system to anchor to the actual chair and reach the foamcore water source within the armature of the furnishings. Grass upholstery pieces were grown in the laboratory’s Warm Room, a climate controlled environment for the growth, housing and breeding of exhibit organisms. Wheat grass was chosen for its quick sprouting time and hardy structure. The final installation was a living room environment created with the wheat grass upholstery.

Original show description:

“Chlorophilia, the love of plants, is a force that compels humans to alter, manipulate, restrain, and kill the green organisms we live with. Exhibited were the work of plant breeders, garden societies and research scientists, aligning the work of both artist and expert in a tradition that is as old as human culture.”

Blender, images 2005www.stelarc.va.com.au

Stelarc and Nina Sellars

CO-CURATED BY KRISTEN KONDEN AND AMELIA DOUGLAS FOR THE TEKNIKUNST O5 CONTEMPORARY TECHNOLOGY FESTIVAL, THIS INSTALLATION WAS REALIZED WITH ADAM FIANNACA - ENGINEERING AND RAINER LINZ - SOUND DESIGNTHANKS ALSO TO LINSEY HAGEN, CAMERON JONES AND LEON VESPAGET.

MEAT MARKET PROJECT SPACE, MELBOURNE4-18 AUGUST, 2005.

CONTENTS OF THE BLENDER INCLUDED SUBCUTANEOUS FAT FROM NINA’S LIMBS AND STELARC’S TORSO, SALINE SOLUTION, ZYLOCAIN (LOCAL ANAESTHETIC), ADRENALIN, O+ BLOOD, SODIUM BICARBONATE, PERIPHERAL NERVES & CONNECTIVE TISSUE.THE BODY TISSUE WAS AUTOCLAVED FOR STERILIZATION AND THE BLENDER VESSEL DISINFECTED AND HERMETICALLY SEALED. BOTH ARTISTS WERE BLOOD TESTED PRIOR TO THE SURGICAL PROCEDURES.THE BIO-MATERIAL WAS AERATED AND MIXED ONCE EVER 5 MINUTESAN AUTOMATED CHOREOGRAPHY OF BUBBLING AND BLENDING.THE PERFORMANCE AND PROJECT WAS A COLLABORATION BY PHYSICALLY SUBTRACTING FROM EACH ARTIST’S BODY. THE BLENDER INSTALLATION IS A MACHINE THAT BECOMES A HOST FOR A LIQUID BODY COMPOSED OF BIOMATERIAL FROM 2 PEOPLE

Stelarc and Nina Sellars undertook liposuction operations specifically for the purpose of this new work and have succeeded in securing the sanitized isolation and, most importantly, the legal ownership of the remnants of the procedures. The bio-materials are now housed within BLENDER's industrial casing. The installation itself stands at just over 1.6 metres high and is anthropomorphic in scale and structure. Every few minutes BLENDER automatically circulates or "blends" its contents via a system of compressed air pumps and a pneumatic actuator. The mixture includes 4.6 litres of subcutaneous fat taken from Stelarc's torso and Nina Sellars' limbs, zylocain (local anaesthetic), adrenalin, O+ blood, sodium bicarbonate, peripheral nerves, saline solutions and connective tissue. Installed under a single, dramatic spotlight, BLENDER is also wired for sound. Rainer Linz's sound design subtly amplifies, distorts and delays the audio produced by the blending mechanism itself.The project is an inevitable outcome of Stelarc and Sellar's longstanding fascination with "alternative corporeal architectures" and bodily functions. It also, however, acts as an astute signpost toward some of the more contentious issues surrounding the blending of contemporary technology with corporeality. In an age in which the body is more frequently neither seen, nor heard, Blender is wryly anarchic: an audible, visceral display of "ontological" substance.

Red Cross, video 2007www.roboriada.org/ultrafuturo

Anton Terziev, Oleg Mavromatti, Katia Damianova (Ultrafuturo)

This performance features the creation of a neon light in a form of a cross, loaded with Anton Terziev’s blood. This is a conceptual object a “machine body” that appropriates and re-assembles alchemist protocols as proto-scientific.

Matters like mercury, neon and argon are common for the production of neon lights and alchemist experiments. The same with body liquids like blood. In this production blood substitutes the luminofor -- the matter that gives specific color to the neon lights. Neon, argon and blood are mixed together in the glass bulb with a form of a cross– symbol used in alchemist manuscripts to signify a vortex of energy also called “egregor”.

This work addresses the eternal human desire to create bodies, physical or conceptual. The reaction between the blood and the other matters created unexpected effects. These “effects” or side effects are parallel to any creative process and can be a trigger to an invention, catastrophe or catastrophic invention. This performance continues series of performance-experiments of the collective that involve interaction between the human body and machine devices, electrical, and chemical processes. Among these performances are “Burning Letters”, “Radio Kaballah”, “The Trickiest Word”, “The Perfect Painter”.

Film produced by Ultrafuturo

Film directed by Oleg MavromattiCamera: Oleg Mavromatti and Katia DamianovaEditing: Oleg MavromattiSound: DJ Hlam based on Orbital

Artists Biographies

Guy Ben Ary (SymbioticA Research Group)Born in USA (1967), lived in Israel and Australia. Currently living and working in WA. Manager of the biological imaging facility of the school of Anatomy and Human Biology, UWA. Specialising in light microscopy, biological and digital imaging. Artist in resident of SymbioticA – The Art & Science Collaborative Lab since April 2000. Trained in programming, web development & Law (LLB). Main research area - cybernatics and the interface of biological material to robotics.

Oron Catts (SymbioticA Research Group)Tissue engineer artist. Born in Finland, lived in Israel and Australia. Co-Founder and Artistic Director of SymbioticA – The Art & Science Collaborative Research Laboratory at The School of Anatomy & Human Biology, University of Western Australia. Founder of the Tissue Culture and Art Project (1996). Research fellow at The Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School (2000-2001). Trained in product design, and specialized in the future interaction of design and biological derived technologies.

Phil Gamblen (SymbioticA Research Group)Born in England, trained and worked as a gem cutter in Canada before moving to Australia and migrating into the arts where he graduated with a Honours Degree in Fine Art (sculpture). Specialises in the use of mechanics, electronics, and robotics to create kinetic art. Current artworks utilise motion and light to investigate technological aspects of today’s culture, the overlap of art and science and the re-use of obsolete and discarded materials. The physical forces and structures within nature are of great interest to him and are a constant reference in his work.

Douglas Bakkum (Steve Potter's Lab)Born in USA, lived in Slovakia and France. Received a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering which provided insight into the workings of the physical world, but he is now interested in the workings of the mind and its perception of the physical world. Currently a doctoral student in the Bioengineering Department at Georgia Tech under the guidance of Steve Potter. Interested in embodying cultured neurons with robots to study the importance of environment in the processes of neural networks.

Ionat Zurr (SymbioticA Research Group)Wet Biology art practitioner. Born in England, lived in Israel and Australia. Artist in residence in SymbioticA – The Art & Science Collaborative Research Laboratory at The School of Anatomy & Human Biology, University of Western Australia. Co-Founder of the Tissue Culture and Art Project. Research fellow at The Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School(2000-2001) Studied photography and media studies, specializing in biological and digital imaging, as well as video production.

Tanja Visosevic [aka. tanya vision & tanya V]is currently completing her PhD. at Murdoch University, is a film and video lecturer at Edith Cowan University and a film critic for ABC720 radio. a moving image artist & film theorist, her work spans installation through to video phone micro-movies and television documentary. most recently her work has screened as part of Microcinema's Touring International Screening Program, 'Independent Exposure'. TV often cross-pollinates her work with bio-art and/or performance.

Bruce Murphy Bruce Murphy is an Optical Engineer working in the field of biomedical  diagnostics. A Perth native with degrees in Computer Science and  Electronic Engineering he is currently completing a PhD with The Optical+Biomedical Engineering Laboratory at the  University of Western Australia in tissue modelling and the design of  spectroscopic diagnostic tools. BioKino is his first major art collaboration but he has preexisting interests in electronic music,  human performance interfaces and Artificial Intelligence.

SymbioticAThe Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory

SymbioticA is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. SymbioticA is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department.SymbioticA sets out to provide a situation where interdisciplinary research and other knowledge and concept generating activities can take place. It provides an opportunity for researchers to pursue curiosity-based explorations free of the demands and constraints associated with the current culture of scientific research while still complying with regulations. SymbioticA also offers a new means of artistic inquiry, one in which artists actively use the tools and technologies of science, not just to comment about them, but also to explore their possibilities.

Shawn Bailey | Shawn Bailey is a practicing artist working with digital print media, video and installation. His current research explores notions of authority, control structures, media and international biotech and pharmaceutical policies. He is an Associate

Professor at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) in Studio Arts (Print Media) and an artist-researcher with the Hexagram Institute. Since 2002, Bailey and Jennifer Willet have collaborated on an innovative computational, biological, artistic, project called BIOTEKNICA. BIOTEKNICA has been exhibited in various forms including ISEA San Jose, USA (2006), Biennial Electronic Arts Perth Perth, Australia (2004), The European Media Arts Festival Osnabrück , Germany (2003), La Société des arts et technologiques (SAT) Montreal, Canada (2005), and The Forest City Gallery London, Canada (2004), amongst others. In addition BIOTEKNICA has been presented in interviews and conferences at multiple venues across Canada, and in France, Australia, Scotland, Germany, and Spain. BIOTEKNICA research has been conducted during residencies at The Banff Centre for the Arts Banff, Canada (2002), and SymbioticA, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia (2004, 2006). www.bioteknica.org

Jennifer Willet | Jennifer Willet is an artist, a part-time faculty member in Studio Arts at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), and a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Humanities program at the same institution. Her work explores notions of self and subjectivity in relation to biomedical, bioinformatics, and digital technologies with an emphasis on social and political criticism. She has exhibited, and presented her research extensively across Canada and internationally. Since 2002, Willet and Shawn Bailey have collaborated on an innovative computational, biological, artistic, project called BIOTEKNICA. BIOTEKNICA has been exhibited in various forms including ISEA San Jose, USA (2006), Biennial Electronic Arts Perth Perth, Australia (2004), The European Media Arts Festival Osnabrück , Germany (2003), La Société des arts et technologiques (SAT) Montreal, Canada (2005), and The Forest City Gallery London, Canada (2004), amongst others. In addition BIOTEKNICA has been presented in interviews and conferences at multiple venues across Canada, and in France, Australia, Scotland, Germany, and Spain. BIOTEKNICA research has been conducted during residencies at The Banff Centre for the Arts Banff, Canada (2002), and SymbioticA, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia (2004, 2006).

Boryana Rossa Boryana Rossa is an artist and curator based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Till 1st August 2004, she works under the name Boryana Dragoeva. She makes photographs, films, performances and combinations of all these. Her videos Celebrating the Next Twinkling; Back & Forth; The Moon and the Sunshine; Why Beauties Fall in Love with Beasts have been shown internationally at venues such as Video Medeja, Novi Sad; Steirischer herbst, Graz; The 8-th International Biennial, Cairo; Regina Gallery, Moscow; Kunsthalle, Vienna, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at Brooklyn Museum.In 1999 together with the Bulgarian artist Ventsislav Zankov she establishes Zet_maG (online magazine for art and critical culture). In 2004 together with the Russian artist Oleg Mavromatti, Rossa establishes UTRAFUTURO - an international group of artists that works in the intersection of technology, ethics and human/machine identity. Writes for: 39 Grama Newspaper About Gravitation, Bulgarian culture and culture politics newspaper, and UMWELT online magazine for body politics.

Oleg MavromattiOleg Mavromatti is an interdisciplinary artist, who works in the fields of performance, installation, photography, film, video and computer animation. He is an outstanding representative of the Moscow Radical Art. Till 2000 he lives and works in Moscow, Russia. From 2002 to 2007 he lives in a political exile in Sofia, Bulgaria. Mavromatti’s performances and artistic actions react rapidly to the socio-political changes in Russia during the 1990’s. His performances “Do Not Kill” (dedicated to every electronic soldier, killed in the computer games), “Do Not Believe Your Eyes”, “Citizen X” have been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; The Culture Center of Stockholm, Pro-Arte Institute, St. Petersburg; Museum of Cinema, Moscow, Guelman’s Gallery, Moscow . Mavromatti is also a founder of SUPERNOVA Film Union and ULTRAFUTURO collective; one of the founders of STIK Moscow Film Festival, founder and leader of the Absolute Love Sect (actionist artistic group - 1995-1999). From 1993 to 1995 Mavromatti was a member of the Netseziudik Group together with Alexander Brenner, Anatolii Osmolovski, Dmitry Piemnov and a member of the ETI group (Expropriation on the Territory of Art) (1989) together with A.Osmolovski, D. Piemnov, A. Obouhova, Grigoriy Goussarov. He was a leader and founder of the group "The Monk Berthold Schwarz Sanitars" (1991-92).

ULTRAFUTURO ULTRAFUTURO (Boryana Rossa, Oleg Mavromatti, Anton Terziev, Katia Daminova and Miroslav Dimitrov) is an artistic collective that works in the intersection of technology, ethics and human/machine identity. The group is established on 1st May, 2004, and based on the activity of the SUPERNOVA Film Union. ULTRAFUTURO is an initiator of the International Robot Day (IRD- February 5 th). Ultrafuturo made more than 20 performances and interventions on public sites. Video films about the activity of the group are in the collection of the Bulgarian National Filmoteque.

Steve Kurtz

Kurtz is a member of the artist group Critical Art Ensemble and Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the State University of New York's University at Buffalo. His areas of focus are contemporary art history and theory as well as poststudio practices. Kurtz received an B.A. in Sociology in 1981 and an M.A. in Social Thought & Sociological Theory in 1983, both from the University of North Texas. As a student Kurtz together with Steve Barnes began a collaboration to make low-tech videos for which they used the signature Critical Art Ensemble. One year later, in 1987, Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) transfored into a broad-based artist and activist collective. In 1990 Kurtz received a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Humanities from the Florida State University. His appointments included Associate Faculty, Goddard College (1993/94) and Graduate Faculty, Vermont College (1992/94), and Associate Faculty, Carnegie Mellon University (1995-2002). Steve Kurtz joined the Art Department at SUNY Buffalo in the Fall 2002.

Critical Art Ensemble Critical Art Ensemble is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations, who focus on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism. The collective has performed and produced a wide variety of projects for an international audience at diverse venues ranging from the street, to the museum, to the Internet. Critical Art Ensemble has also written five books: Their most recent works include The Molecular Invasion (Autonomedia, 2002) and Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public Health (Autonomedia, 2005).

Dmitry Bulatov is an artist, researcher, curator and an art theorist. His research activities focus on different aspects of interdisciplinary sci-art media (robotechnics, genetic engineering, nano-tech, etc.).

He is author of more than 30 articles on contemporary art published in Russia and abroad, also of such books and anthologies as "Ex-poetry. Selected articles" (Malbork, 1996), "Point of View" (Olsztyn, 1998), "Homo Sonorus" (engl/rus, +4CD, Kaliningrad, 2001; republished: Mexico, 2004), “BioMediale” (engl/rus, Kaliningrad, 2004). His artworks were shown at more than 100 exhibitions, among them are such as the International Art Fair "Eurasian Zone" (Moscow, 1999), "Bunker Poetico" (49 Venice Biennial, Venice, 2001), "Davaj! Russian Art Now" (Berlin-Vienna, 2002), "Technopoetry” (Florence-Milan, 2003), “Brain Academy Apartment” (50 Venice Biennial, Venice, 2003), “Platforma” (St.Peterburg, 2004), “3durch3” (Kassel, 2004), “Art of Tortures and Executions” (Kaliningrad, 2005), “Eastern Neighbours” (Utreht, 2006), “Victory over the Sun” (Moscow, 2007) and others.

Bulatov is laureate of the professional reward "Recognition" (1998), Little Booker prize diploma-winner for literature (short-list, 2000). He is organizer and curator of more than 20 international art projects. Member of the Editorial Board ”DOC(K)S" magazine (France). He currently lives in Kaliningrad, Russia. Since 1998 has been Senior curator at the Kaliningrad Branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Art (Ministry of Culture, Russia). He was born in 1968 in Kaliningrad (Russia).

Julia Reodica Julia Reodica is an art/science educator, studio/laboratory founder and practicing nurse, currently residing in Troy, New York. Her on-going work merges traditional art practices and emerging biotechnology to create art pieces that express social commentary and encourages public inquiry. Science-related work based on utilizing semi/living systems for exhibition was developed through work in art/science museums and institutions in the U.S. and internationally. In 2005, she received her M.F.A. in Electronic Arts at RPI. At RPI, she established a working relationship with Helen Hong, Ph.D. of the Stegemann Laboratory to initiate a tissue culturing project that utilized both smooth muscle cells used in research and the artist’s own body cells for soft sculptures created in her studio.

Kathy High Kathy High is a visual/media artist, curator, and teacher living and working in upstate New York and Brooklyn. Her videos and installations look at issues of gender and technology, pursue queer and feminist inquiries into areas of medicine/bio-science, and engage with science fiction, and interspecies collaborations. Her video have been shown in galleries and museums nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, MASS MoCA, as well as aired on PBS. She received awards for her video works including grants from Rockefeller Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts. For a number of years, High has produced videos that look at women’s health to interspecies telepathic communications.

Richard PellRichard Pell's collaborative interactive and robotic works have been exhibited in art, activist and engineering contexts such as the ZKM in Karlsruhe, Mass MoCA, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Hackers On Planet Earth and the International Conference On Robotics And Automation. Additionally the art collective he co-founded was chosen for several awards at the Prix-Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria and was recently selected for RES Magazine's "10 Best New Artists of 2005". His video documentary entitled, Don't Call Me Crazy On The 4th Of July, won the Best Michigan Director Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2005, took 1st prize at the Iowa International Documentary Film Festival and has screened in numerous festivals internationally. Additionally, Richard has consulted with organizations such as the Institute for Applied Autonomy, the Center for Bio Media Literacy, the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

Adam Zaretsky Adam Zaretsky is a bio-artist, working as a research affiliate in Arnold Demain's Laboratory for Industrial Microbiology and Fermentation in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Biology. He received a Master of Fine Arts in 1999 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied and researched with 'transgenic' artist Eduardo Kac. Since then, he has worked with such pioneers of bio-art as Joe Davis, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr. Zaretsky also taught an art and biology studio class in fall 2001 as a visiting artist at San Francisco State University. He has been invited by Prof.Dr. Robert Zwijnenberg of The Arts and Genomic Centre and the Arts Department, University of Leiden in conjunction with Prof.Dr. Huub de Groot, Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Gorlaeus Laboratories, University of Leiden to teach the class VivoArts: Art and Biology Studio - Wet Lab Practice and Bio-Art Pedagogy at the Faculty of Arts, Department of Art History University of Leiden. Besides the bio-art installations on which he is working, Zaretsky has created a large body of digital artworks, collage and photography.

Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his interactive net installations and his bio art. A pioneer of telecommunications art in the pre-Web '80s, Eduardo Kac (pronounced "Katz") emerged in the early '90s with his radical telepresence and biotelematic works. His visionary combination of robotics and networking explores the fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world. His work deals with issues that range from the mythopoetics of online experience (Uirapuru) to the cultural impact of biotechnology (Genesis); from the changing condition of memory in the digital age (Time Capsule) to distributed collective agency (Teleporting an Unknown

State); from the problematic notion of the "exotic" (Rara Avis) to the creation of life and evolution (GFP Bunny). At the dawn of the twenty-first century Kac opened a new direction for contemporary art with his "transgenic art"--first with a groundbreaking installation entitled Genesis (1999), which included an "artist's gene" he invented, and then with his fluorescent rabbit called Alba (2000). Kac’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Exit Art and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, and Lieu Unique, Nantes, France; OK Contemporary Art Center, Linz, Austria; InterCommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo; Julia Friedman Gallery, Chicago; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; and Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro. Kac's work has been showcased in biennials such as Yokohama Triennial, Japan, Gwangju Biennale, Korea, and Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil.