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ART IMITATES LIFE-SCIENCE The Bio-Art Movement Finds (Cultures & Grows) Its Wings in France Text and photos: Shana Ting Lipton NANTES, France- It's March 13th, 2003. It's a chilly, gray day in downtown Nantes. A walk over a bridge and just past some railroad tracks takes me to the foot of the huge cement building. It used to be the LU biscuit factory, but just three years ago it was transformed into the cultural center, Le Lieu Unique. Founded by 'the French pope of alternative culture' Jean Blaise. Its raison-d'être is to provide an all-purpose locale (café/bar, gallery, lecture space, bookstore, restaurant) where the arts and everyday life can seamlessly co-habitate, far from the alienating snobbery of the Paris art scene. It's a sort of casual open forum for diverse ideas. For the next couple of months, the image of a large fluorescent green rabbit is draped over the side of Le Lieu Unique (known to locals in its former nomenclature, LU). Beneath it are the words "L'Art Biotech" (translation: bio-art), heralding a two-month long exhibit and a one-day symposium in the name of a growing art-meets-science movement. The partly cute, partly disturbing mutant bunny image-from Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac's controversial GFP Bunny project-- has come, in many ways, to be known as the icon of this movement called bio-art. Where Jules Verne and André Breton hinted at collaboration between the arts and science; bio-artists throw it--as if it were a vial of hydrochloric acid--in your face. In varying degrees these global artists (most of whom don't even come from scientific backgrounds) use science in different ways as a subject, medium and canvas for their work. The GFP Bunny (named Alba) is a transgenic (genetically modified) animal that expresses GFP (a fluorescent protein) when she is exposed to a certain type of ultraviolet light. Just an outlandish toy for twenty-first-century trippers who are sick of their lava lamps? Kac seems to think not. The artist--who is the chair of the Art & Technology department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago-conceived the project (and altered life form) in 2000, in hopes of opening up a discourse on a very sobering topic: the use of genetic modification in animal research. |
"Where Jules Verne and André Breton hinted at collaboration between the arts and science; bio-artists throw it--as if it were a vial of hydrochloric acid--in your face."
Universal Code: Eduardo Kac's Genesis takes a passage out of the book of Genesis and translates it into original language, DNA
He has said that he 'created' the modified rabbit with the help of two scientists in the biotechnology wing of the National Institute of Agronomic Research in France. It spurred a fury in all corners: the art world, amongst animal rights activists, and the scientific community. It thrust Kac (who is arguably the most famous bio-artist in the world) and bio-art, into the international public eye. It was all that the creator could have hoped for. The art world asked: 'is it art?' The animal rights activists asked, 'how do we stop scientific advancements from infringing on nature?' And the scientific community balked, 'is it science?' There has also been some grumbling from the science camp about misrepresentation in this work. According to some, that same famous image of fluorescent Alba that adorns the LU building in Nantes is but a somewhat tweaked representation of the truth. In reality, GFP can't manifest itself through fur. So, in broad-daylight Kac's rabbit looks pretty much normal apart from her eyes and the inside of her ears. Still, who can contest that the artist--whose background, prior to his bio-art works, was in multimedia art involving telecommunications and online experiences-is making the ultimate flavor-of-the-moment modern media statement: he's branded the GFP Bunny. Continue to Page 2: Opening Night
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