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Signs of Life
Bio Art and Beyond
Edited by Eduardo Kac
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Bio art is a new art form that has emerged from the cultural impact and increasing accessibility of contemporary biotechnology. Signs of Life is the first book to focus exclusively on art that uses biotechnology as its medium, defining and discussing the theoretical and historical implications of bio art and offering examples of work by prominent artists.

Bio art manipulates the processes of life; in its most radical form, it invents or transforms living organisms. It is not representational; bio art is in vivo. (A celebrated example is Eduardo Kac’s own GFP Bunny, centered on “Alba,” the transgenic fluorescent green rabbit.) The creations of bio art become a part of evolution and, provided they are capable of reproduction, can last as long as life exists on earth. Thus, bio art raises unprecedented questions about the future of life, evolution, society, and art.

The contributors to Signs of Life articulate the critical theory of bio art and document its fundamental works. The writers—who include such prominent scholars as Barbara Stafford, Eugene Thacker, and Dorothy Nelkin—consider the culture and aesthetics of biotechnology, the ethical and philosophical aspects of bio art, and biology in art history. The section devoted to artworks and artists includes George Gessert’sWhy I Breed Plants, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr’s Semi-Living Art, Marc Quinn’s Genomic Portrait, and Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey’sChlorophyll.

About the Editor

Eduardo Kac is an internationally renowned artist who has received critical acclaim for net and bio works including Genesis, GFP Bunny, and Move 36. His work has been widely exhibited and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, among others.

Why do people object to the idea of body enhancement? Criticism based on moral or ethical arguments opposing biological changes in humans, seems to ignore the fact that even with no technological intervention we all go through life trying to change the ones around us to fit to our moral codes and understanding of the world.
Why are psychological manipulations, stubborn arguments or emotional blackmail more acceptable than gene doping? Isn’t the attempt to change character a more serious matter than simply enhancing physical attributes?
Cellular memory is a theory which claims that human body cells contain clues to our personalities, tastes and histories. According to this theory, a fragment of an organ donor’s personality can be passed on during transplant surgery.
This is a story of a world in which medical procedures are used to perform personality enhancement surgery. It symbolises an acceptance of our tendency to change the behaviour of others so we can understand their actions.

Romantic relationships are difficult, cluttered with misunderstanding, disappointment, and unfulfilled expectations. In a future where medical advances make an organ transplant operation a routine procedure, a transplant wedding is a way for a couple to show their commitment to each other by swapping their hearts,
thus installing a fragment of their personality into their partner.
As a result, they will be able to form a better understanding of the person they have chosen to spend their lives with, share their passions, phobias and traumas as well as experience flashbacks of each other’s dreams and memories.
The exchange of an organ instead of a ring corresponds with past rituals of extreme romantic gestures. It also refers to the temporary insanity condition which is identified with romantic love, and to the possessive tendency we tend to develop within a relationship.

The wedding ceremony takes part in an operating theatre. Before the wedding the couple goes through counselling sessions in order to prepare and discuss issues such as the consequences of unequal preliminary medical condition (would you swap your healthy heart for a smoker’s one?) and an unlikely divorce (if you deeply hurt your partner, could you cope with the painful memories which are now stored in the heart that you have just retrieved?)

The first year after a transplant is considered a critical time and will determine whether your body will reject the new organ. Researchers of cellular memory claim that the rejection process might not only reflect the rejection of the material comprising the cells of the new heart but also the synthetic information which is
stored within the cells.
As the first year of a marriage is also perceived as a critical time that would determine the success of the relationship, a transplant wedding can also be perceived as a compatibility test.
In this year you will have to take immunosuppressive drugs that will prevent your body from rejecting the heart, these drugs will also weaken your body’s ability to fight common infections. As a result you and your partner will have to stay in a sterile environment, being secluded from the rest of the world should give you the time to develop successful relationship patterns.

After the surgery you may find yourself developing new unexplained interests. Enjoy it; this is another thing you and your partner now have in common
“And then, when they played me some of his music, I could finish the phrases of his songs. I could never play before, but after my transplant I began to love music. I felt it in my heart. My heart had to play it. His song is in me. I feel it a lot at night and it’s like Paul is serenading me.”
“He’s got this weird laugh now. It’s a girl’s laugh and we tell him that. He doesn’t care.”
Quotes taken from The Journal of Near-Death Studies, March 2002.

Tekst and Images from Revital Cohen.

Find out more about Adam Zaretsky.

City Semination Lecture
Lecture about do it yourself DNA hacking.

Art for non-humans
Art for non-humans. What fetishes do animals have.

The City Semination Performance
Accompanying performance for the lecture. Plants are carnivores that wait for the meat to die.

Glove Box performance
Bio art performance

Waag Society & Adam Zaretsky – The Stedelijk Museum Performance
Man in incubator gets decorated with food while people stencil his blood.

The DNA dice performance
Accompanying performance for the lecture

The DNA Dice Lecture
Lecture about do it yourself DNA hacking

Life DNA performance
People going crazy with DNA

The bacterium »Deinococcus radiodurans« is one of the simplest and oldest organisms on earth. US-american and japanese scientists managed to use the organisms genome to store data.

The organisms genetic code was augmented
by a strain of artificial code. This modified genome, was synthesized, processed and injected into a cell nucleus.
Apart from the laboratory, for synthesizing and injecting the DNA into the nucleus, water and sugar is needed for breeding and for keeping the organism alive.

In this modified bacterial culture, thousands of copies of data exist and reproduce. The data can be retrieved without beeing damaged. Today the process takes time and substantial laboratory equipment, but that was the case with computers in the 1960s as well.

What if this technology experiences the same processes of miniaturization as computers have, in the past 50 years?
How are we going to treat these organisms in machines?
Are they organisms or are they machines?

»Wetware« is a set of fictional prototypes, that show three different interaction scenarios with the organism.

The first scenario is based on our current interaction with technology. A black box, a device of wich we do not know or see the inside, can be equipped with cartridges of water and sugar. We do not see the organism, we only change cartridges, like we do with printers today.

The second scenario suggests a more direct interaction with the organism. The bacterial culture is visible through a hole in the middle of the device. The user has to take care of the organism himself by supplying water and sugar in minute doses.

The third scenario is based on the assumption that the bacterial culture is not constrained to a device, but has entered the users body. For accessing the stored data, the user has to take a smear-test from his oral mucosa.

Tekst from Tilman Richter

The promises posed by new reproductive technologies such as IVF, test tube babies and egg freezing, are blurring perceptions of the reproductive cycle amongst women, and consequently, the age of conception is constantly being challenged.
The female body clock relies on moonlight to regulate the menstrual cycle. The use of artificial light and contraceptive hormones, along with the growing pressure to develop a career, are distorting the body’s reproductive signals. The artificial biological clock compensates for this increasingly lost instinct.
This object acts as constant reminder of the temporary and fragile nature of fertility. Given to a woman by her parents or partner, it reacts to information from her doctor, therapist and bank manager via an online service. When she is physically, mentally and financially ready to conceive the object awakes, seeking her attention.
Tekst and images from Revital Cohen

For a glimpse into the minds of the future’s great designers, Design Indaba this year invited the top graduates from design institutions across the world to not only come and experience Design Indaba, but also share their work in Pecha Kucha format. Speaking at the conference were Jon Stam from Design Academy Eindhoven, Sandhya Lalloo from the University of Johannesburg, Revital Cohen from the Royal College of Art in London, Arno Mathies from ECAL Lausanne in Switzerland, Barbara Cilliers from the University of Pretoria and Lauren Mackler from Rhode Island School of Design in the US.

This presentation by Revital Cohen, in which she talks about her Life Support Project, was also presented at the Design Indaba Expo.

About Revital Cohen:

Cohen recently attained a Masters in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London, which followed a BA in Contemporary Furniture Design from Buckinghamshire New University. As a designer and researcher she develops critical objects and provocative scenarios exploring the juxtaposition of the natural with the artificial. Her work spans across various media and includes collaborations with scientists, animal breeders and medical consultants. Website: revitalcohen.com

About the Life Support project:

“Assistance animals – from guide dogs to psychiatric service cats – unlike computerised machines, can establish a natural symbiosis with the patients who rely on them. Could animals be transformed into medical devices? This project proposes using animals bred commercially for consumption or entertainment as companions and providers of external organ replacement. The use of transgenic farm animals, or retired working dogs, as life support ‘devices’ for renal and respiratory patients offers an alternative to inhumane medical therapies. Could a transgenic animal function as a whole mechanism and not simply supply the parts? Could humans become parasites and live off another organism’s bodily functions?”

Natalie Jeremijenko (born 1966) is an artist and engineer whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. She is an active member of the net.art movement, and her work primarily explores the interface between society, the environment and technology. She is currently an Associate Professor at NYU in the Visual Art Department, and has affiliated faculty appointments in Computer Science and Environmental Studies.