Week 6 | Ethics of Biotech + Art

 

Kathy High. Rat Laughter. 2009-2019. 

BioArt is oftentimes a highly controversial practice due to opposition rooted in ethics and morality. Experimentation is sometimes performed on human subjects or the researchers themselves, but tests and art modifications are mostly conducted on animals. Researchers defend their work in the name of art and scientific progression, but it is difficult to distinguish what constitutes as necessary and what is animal cruelty. 

Therefore, five pillars of research ethics were established. One of the pillars is consent. Consent is not always possible to achieve, especially in experimentation with infants or fetuses, but it is often required in conjunction with transparency. Moreover, many labs are required to have ethics training and regulations established to inhibit scientists and artists from mistreating the lab subjects. The Animal Welfare Act is one example of a United States federal regulation that outlines human care and treatment in addition to measures that will prevent animal theft or illegal sales. These policies are used to evaluate research projects such as the GFP bunny altered by Eduardo Kac.

Eduardo Kac and the biofluorescent (GFP) bunny.

Kathy High emphasized empathy in her project with transgenic rats. Oftentimes, lab animals such as rats are subjected to inhumane conditions because they are commonly disregarded as pests. Kathy High reframes the lives of the lab animals and finds a way to relate with the discarded animal subjects. 

In addition to concerns with unethical experimentation, there are also fears around the danger BioArt poses against humans. For example, museums deemed Joe Davis’ genetically modified bacteria unsafe to display in their institutions due to the risks of its modified nature. Meanwhile, a Turkish artist, Selin Balci, experimented with collage art and fungi which interestingly mimicked human behavior such as that of rapid population growth. In this way, BioArt reveals truths about human kind, and that owes to the intrigue of the practice.

Selin Balci fungi global map. Labiotech. 

Selin Balci fungi gallery. Labiotech.

Source

Fernandez, Clara Rodriguez. "This Turkish Bioartist Creates Beautiful Maps out of Fungi". Labiotech. 2017. https://www.labiotech.eu/more-news/selin-balci-bioart-fungi/

High, Kathy. Rat Laughter. Hamiltro. 2009-2019. https://www.kathyhigh.com/projects/rat-laughter/. 

Kac, Eduardo. GFP Bunny. 2000. http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor. 

Richmond, Holly. "You’d better get used to glowing neon genetically altered animals". Grist. 2013. https://grist.org/living/youd-better-get-used-to-glowing-neon-genetically-altered-animals/

Vesna, Victoria. "5 BioArt pt3". UC Online YouTube. May 17, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EpD3np1S2g&list=PL9DBF43664EAC8BC7&t=326s.