aesthetics
leads to accumulation of highly intertwined
catenated dimers: dissection of the final stages
of SV40 DNA replication. Cell 25, 659669
(1981).
51. Koshland, D. & Hartwell, L. H. The structure of
sister minichromosome DNA before anaphase in
Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Science 238,
Frances Stracey
17131716 (1987).
52. Tanaka, K. & Watanabe, Y. Chromatid cohesion: Abstract | Bio-art represents a crossover of art and the biological sciences, with
acetylation joins the sisters. Curr. Biol. 18,
R917R919 (2008). living matter, such as genes, cells or animals, as its new media. Such manipulations
53. Jahnke, P. et al. The cohesin loading factor NIPBL
recruits histone deacetylases to mediate local of life require collaborations with scientists and considerable financial backing.
chromatin modifications. Nucleic Acids Res. 36,
64506458 (2008).
Herein, I consider bio-art that goes under the skin in which DNA, cells or
54. Kimata, Y. et al. Diminishing HDACs by drugs or proteins are used as the media and means to highlight the ethical implications
mutations promotes normal or abnormal sister
chromatid separation by affecting APC/C and of reducing life to art.
adherin. J. Cell Sci. 121, 11071118 (2008).
55. Gullerova, M. & Proudfoot, N. J. Cohesin complex
promotes transcriptional termination between The use of the protocols and tools of develop- applications of collaborative developments.
convergent genes in S. pombe. Cell 132, 983995 mental biology in bio-art represents a radical The process by which corporate, commercial
(2008).
56. Lengronne, A. et al. Cohesin relocation from sites of shift away from conventional art media. or academic funding bodies carefully select
chromosomal loading to places of convergent By using the core materials of ontogeny (the and vet suitable bio-art projects to sponsor
transcription. Nature 430, 573578 (2004).
57. Toyoda, Y. et al. Requirement of chromatid cohesion development of an organism) and phylogeny also remains unquestioned. To avoid the
proteins Rad21/Scc1 and Mis4/Scc2 for normal (the evolution of species) that is, by using charge of naivety, if not complicity, bio-artists
spindlekinetochore interaction in fission yeast.
Curr. Biol. 12, 347358 (2002). the processes of life to sculpt and mould, need to reflect on their part in the creation of
58. Lee, J. et al. Unified mode of centromeric protection bio-art signals a transition from the produc- economically driven new life forms4.
by shugoshin in mammalian oocytes and somatic
cells. Nature Cell Biol. 10, 4252 (2008). tion of art objects to the creation of living This article redresses these concerns in
59. Haering, C. H., Farcas, A. M., Arumugam, P., entities1,2. Many of the mutagenic processes two ways. First, it explores how controversial
Metson, J. & Nasmyth, K. The cohesin ring
concatenates sister DNA molecules. Nature 454, used to this end, such as the cloning of genes biotechnologies used in bio-art, such as
297301 (2008). or micrografting techniques, require the help cloning and transgenics, are either enabled
60. Liu, J. & Krantz, I. D. Cohesin and human disease.
Annu. Rev. Genomics Hum. Genet. 9, 303320 of scientists and financial assistance3. For or distorted by an artistic remediation and
(2008). example, the 2008 SK-Interfaces exhibition translation into a cultural discourse. It also
61. Losada, A. The regulation of sister chromatid cohesion.
Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1786, 4148 (2008). held at the Foundation for Art and Creative pushes the debates around bio-art beyond
62. Guacci, V. Sister chromatid cohesion: the cohesin Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, UK, their limiting aesthetic implications by focus-
cleavage model does not ring true. Genes Cells 12,
693708 (2007). included a range of academic and corporate ing on their bioethical ramifications (BOX 1),
63. Kumada, K. et al. Cut1 is loaded onto the spindle by sponsors, such as the Goethe-Institut London, such as questioning who is responsible for
binding to Cut2 and promotes anaphase spindle
movement upon Cut2 proteolysis. Curr. Biol. 8, SymbioticA, The University of western the creation, care and disposal of a bio-
633641 (1998). Australia, Clinical Engineering and econtis, engineered life form, regardless of whether
64. Tsou, M. F. & Stearns, T. Mechanism limiting
centrosome duplication to once per cell cycle. although their roles and their financial or it goes under the name of art, science or both.
Nature 442, 947951 (2006). technological contributions were unspecified.
Acknowledgements Given such complex, interdisciplinary A brief history of bio-art
The author is greatly indebted to T. Kiyomitsu for micrographs partnerships, ascertaining the shared or Bio-art is a relatively new development in
in figures 1 and 2, to E. Nigg for the anti-PICH antibody used
to prepare figure 2 and past and present support for the competing agendas of the collaborators is contemporary art, still at the threshold of
authors laboratories from the Ministry of Education, Culture, difficult. Reading through catalogues and definition, but it can be linked to two mod-
Sports Science and Technology of Japan, the Japan Science
Technology Corporation and the Okinawa Institute of Science interviews with bio-art practitioners, their ern originators. Appropriately, one is an
and Technology Promotion Corporation. The author gratefully rationales and justifications for turning artist, the photographer Edward Steichen,
acknowledges constructive criticisms throughout the develop-
ment of this Opinion article. life into art often remain hidden behind and the other a scientist and the discoverer
aestheticism or scientism, or rather glib of penicillin, Alexander Fleming. In 1936,
DATABASES because I can attitudes. In most cases, the at the Museum of Modern Art, New york,
entrez Gene: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query. bio-art scientists tend not to attract media USA, Steichen exhibited a collection of
fcgi?db=gene
NIPBL | NippedB | mis4+ | SCC2 attention, either because they deliberately strange yet beautiful Delphinium flowers.
OMiM: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query. stay in the background or because they are These were the result of a chemical experi-
fcgi?db=OMIM
cdLS ignored, so their intentions remain unclear. ment: Steichen dosed the Delphinium seeds
UniProtKB: http://www.uniprot.org Consequently, there is a sense of a lack of in a chemical bath of colchicine, a toxin that
Aurora B | BUB1 | BUBR1 | cDc20 | cDK1 | eco1 | MAD2 |
MeI-S332 | PIcH | PLK1 | RAD21 | securin | separase | SMc1 |
accountability on their part in the making of induces polyploidy, resulting in the mutated
SMc2 | SMc3 | SMc4 | TBP | TOP1 | TOP2 | TOP3 | PP1 bio-artworks. Such quietude (whether it is flowers. Notably, ugly, stunted, febrile rejects
FURTHER inFoRMATion witting or not) needs to be challenged. The that also resulted from this art-orientated
Mitsuhiro Yanagidas homepage: problem with silent scientists is that they risk chemical experiment were omitted from the
http://www.irp.oist.jp/g0/index.php
mirroring a limiting art-for-arts sake attitude show, exposing the role of edited selection
SUppLEMEnTARY inFoRMATion held by some artists with a science-for- in bio-art. Previously, in 1933, Alexander
see online article: S1 (table)
all liNks are acTive iN The oNliNe PDf
sciences sake approach that is seemingly Fleming exhibited his germ paintings
uninterested in the broader, cultural (images drawn by putting bacteria on paper
for undisclosed reasons the laboratory the less pretty side of transgenic life, but also
refused to release her, sparking further its possible improvement: in their new sur-
controversy, legal battles and an offshoot roundings, the fur of these rats grows back,
campaign called Free Alba. This was all they playfully interact with one another and
played out in newspapers, on television and exhibit signs of different personalities. High
on the radio22,23. It has been argued that this does not challenge the rights to produce and
work emphasizes our ethical responsibility use transgenic animals, but she at least forces
towards other humans, part-humans, us to consider the ethical issue of how we
posthumans and non-humans with whom should care for a bioengineered life28.
we cohabit and seek to perfect and
control24. what Kac and his supporters Semi-living entities. In 2004, the art collec-
fail to discuss, however, is that GFP and tive The Tissue Culture and Art (TC&A)
other fluorescent molecules used in imaging project (formed by the artists Oron Catts
Figure 3 | eduardo kac, GFP Bunny (2000). can cause cell damage25,26. The fluorescent and Ionat Zurr) created Victimless Leather
GFP Bunny (where GFP is green fluorescent pro- proteins in Alba (and in Kacs other a Prototype of a Stitch-less Jacket Grown
tein) was a three-stage project carried out by the organisms27) might be toxic, if not fatal. in a Technoscientific Body (FIG. 4). This
artist eduardo Kac and scientists at the Institut Instead of creating new transgenic prototype organic jacket (an alternative
National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), animals, the artist Kathy High works with to traditional forms of leather making)
France. The first phase of this artwork comprised
existing ones that are produced for scien- comprised living tissue that was grown
genetic modification, such that an albino rabbit,
named Alba, expressed enhanced GFP. When tific research. In Embracing Animal (2005), over a three-dimensional armature and
illuminated with blue light, Alba glows a bright which was part of the exhibition Becoming kept alive in a bioreactor. By this process,
green. The second phase of this project con- Animal (curated by Nato Thompson) for the TC&A claim to have created a new, artifi-
cerned the lively social, cultural and ethical Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary cially designed category of the semi-living
debates provoked by this man-made mutation. Art in May 2005 (see the Embracing Animal located at the border between the living and
The third phase involved taking Alba back to Kacs website), High exhibited three retired the non-living, objects and subjects, the
home in chicago, Illinois, USA, to live as part of breeding rats named Tara, Star and Matilda grown and constructed, and the born and
his family. However, this phase was never com- Barbie. These are transgenic rats that stably manufactured29. yet, these synthetic skins or
pleted, as the INRA laboratory refused to release express HLA-B27, a human class I major entities are not victimless: fetal calves were
the transgenic rabbit for undisclosed reasons.
histocompatibility complex molecule. This destroyed to provide the serum that sus-
Figure is reproduced, with permission, from
eduardo Kac (2000). rat line is routinely used as a disease model tains their existence30,31. The testing of this
for diagnostic research on Crohns disease victimless claim was, however, an explicit
and related autoimmune disorders. These part of the artwork: the feeding rituals
breeding of domestic pets20. Indeed, Kac is rats suffer the same pain and metabolic addressed the nutritional requirements
clear that the creation of Alba was just one disarray that comes with such disorders, for the semi-livings survival, whereas dis-
part of the artwork, with another based from which the artist herself suffers. Highs mantling the bioreactor at the end of the
on the public debate raised by her exist- empathetic artwork consists in giving these exhibition reflected on the temporal nature
ence21. For the final phase of this project, retired Barbies a new home, care and atten- of the living art, the demise or killing of
Kac originally planned to take Alba back to tion, and even some of her homeopathic which becomes the responsibility of its
his home in Chicago, Illinois, USA, but remedies. These bald, stumbling rats expose human creators32.
Conclusion and macroscopic worlds) is made emphatic. 15. Thacker, E. The Global Genome: Biotechnology,
Politics and Culture (The MIT Press, Boston, 2005).
Beyond a shared use of biomedia or living And Natalie jeremijenkos cloned OneTree 16. de Menezes, M. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond
matter, the artists and scientists involved in (1999), for example, consists of 1,000 trees, (ed. Kac, E.) 220221; 215229 (The MIT Press,
Boston, 2007).
bio-art may have divergent or even conflict- all clones, micropropagated in culture. 17. de Menezes, M. The artificial natural: manipulating
ing intellectual, ethical or aesthetic aims and Despite being biologically identical, these butterfly wing patterns for artistic purposes. Leonardo
36, 2932 (2003).
interests. Such conflicts need clarification if clones, planted in different areas with differ- 18. Wolfe, C. Animal Rites: American Culture, the
we are to negotiate the role that bio-art has ent soil and climate conditions, will render Discourse of Species and Posthumanism (Univ.
Chicago Press, 2003).
in disseminating often controversial science the social and environmental differences to 19. Viglietta, C., Massoud, M. & Houdebine, L. M. in
to a non-expert audience. The placement of which they are exposed during the years Transgenic Animals Generation and Use (ed.
Houdebine, L. M.) (Harwood Academic Publishing,
mutagenic creations in the public space of a of their growth33. These examples form a Amsterdam, 1997).
gallery does enable wider access to complex, branch of bio-art that emphatically exposes 20. McKie, R. Fluorescent fish give the green light to GM
pets. Observer (Lond.) 2 (15 Jun 2003).
cultural debates about how and who is and tests the determinations and mutations 21. Kac, E. Telepresence & Bio Art 236248; 264285
responsible for the shaping of our biotechno- of life by entwining the microscopic (or (Univ. Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005).
22. Kac, E. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond (ed. Kac, E.)
logical future, thereby opening up a space for molecular) and the macroscopic (external 163184 (The MIT Press, Boston, 2007).
critical dialogue beyond or in-between the conditions). Bio-art can thus be a provoca- 23. Kac, E. GFP Bunny. ekac.org [online], http://www.ekac.
org/gfpbunny.html (2009).
specialist discourses of both art and science. tive reminder that how life is modelled and 24. Becker, C. in Art Journal 4547 (Fall, 2000).
Bio-art is least successful, and most represented matters to how it is valued, used 25. Remington, S. J. Fluorescent proteins: maturation,
photochemistry and photophysics. Curr. Opin. Struct.
contentious, when the science is reduced and disposed of. Biol. 16, 714721 (2006).
to mere aesthetic spectacle, and no account Frances Stracey is at University College London
26. Dixit, R., Cyr, R. & Gilroy, S. Using intrinsically
fluorescent proteins for plant cell imaging. Plant J. 45,
is taken of the specific or paradigmatic History of Art, 599615 (2006).
differences that affect how one discipline 3941 Gordon Square, 27. Britton, S. & Collins, D. (eds) The Eighth Day: The
Transgenic Art of Eduardo Kac (Arizona State Univ.
is mediated through another. On the one London, WC1H 0PD, UK.
Tempe, 2003).
e-mail: f.stracey@ucl.ac.uk
hand, the artists who are involved must be 28. Lestel, D. LAnimal Singulier (Flammarion, Paris,
doi:10.1038/nrm2699 2004) (in French).
candid about how and why they appropriate 29. Catts, O. & Zurr, I., Artistic life forms that would never
Published online 20 May 2009
and make an artwork out of a particular sci- survive darwinian evolution: growing semi-living
1. Kac, E. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond (ed. Kac, E.) entities. Tissue Culture and Art Project [online],
ence, and how this is transformed through 114 (The MIT Press, Boston, 2007). http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/publication/
its remediation as art. On the other hand, 2. Thacker, E. Biomedia (University of Minnesota Press, Artisticlifeormsthatwouldneversurvive.pdf (2003).
Minneapolis, 2004). 30. Senior, A. in SK-Interfaces: Exploding Borders in Art,
scientists need to voice their explanations 3. Zaretsky, A. The mutagenic arts. CIACs electronic Technology and Society 7682 (FACT, Liverpool,
about how or why the realm of culture is magazine, no. 23 [online], http://www.ciac.ca/ 2008).
magazine/archives/no_23/en/dossier.htm (2005). 31. Carlo E. A. et al. The use of fetal bovine serum: ethical
suitable for disseminating and making 4. Rajan, K. S. Biocapital: the Constitution of or scientific problem. Altern. Lab. Anim. 30, 219227
accessible their practice, and at what and Postgenomic Life (Duke Univ. Press, Durham, 2006). (2002).
5. Gedrim, R. J. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond 32. Catts, O. & Zurr, I. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond
whose cost or benefit. (ed. Kac, E.) 347369 (The MIT Press, Boston, 2007). (ed. Kac, E.) 232247 (The MIT Press, Boston, 2007).
At its self-reflective and critical best, 6. Fleming, A. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond 33. Jeremijenko, N. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond
(ed. Kac, E.) 345346 (The MIT Press, Boston, 2007). (ed. Kac, E.) 301302 (The MIT Press, Boston,
however, bio-art can show that life is more 7. Fehilly, C. B., Willadsen, S. M. & Tucker, E. M. 2007).
than brute matter and more than the sum Interspecific chimaerism between sheep and goat.
Nature 307 634636 (1984). Acknowledgements
of cells, proteins or genes; it can emphasize 8. Cao, Y., Vacanti, J. P., Paige, K. T., Upton, J. & This article is derived from a paper entitled From the Post-
the social constituents or social situation Vacanti, C. A. Transplantation of chondrocytes utilizing Human to the Post-Evolutionary Condition: Transgenic Art
a polymercell construct to produce tissue engineered delivered to the Ph.D. seminar programme of the MRC Centre
of production. In Critical Art Ensembles cartilage in the shape of a human ear. Plast. Reconstr. for Developmental Neurobiology at Kings College London, on
Immolation (2008), for example, which was Surg. 100, 297302 (1997). 13 June 2006. I thank B. Eickholt for the invitation to speak
9. Rifkin, J. Dazzled by science. Guardian (Lond.) 17 (14 at this seminar and subsequent discussions.
exhibited at the SK-Interfaces exhibition, Jan 2003).
artists Steve Kurtz and Lucia Sommer used 10. Rifkin, J. The Biotech Century (Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
London, 1998).
tissue culture and microimaging to stage and 11. [No authors listed.] Under the Skin: Biological
DATABASES
OMiM: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.
reproduce the effects of incendiary weapons Transformations in Contemporary Art (ed. Heller, fcgi?db=OMIM
R. H.) (Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, 2001).
on civilian skin cells contained in Petri 12. Rose, N. The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power
crohns disease
dishes. By pairing this microscopic imagery and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton FURTHER inFoRMATion
Univ. Press, 2006).
of disintegrating human skin cells with large 13. [No authors listed.] Gallery puts DNA in the frame.
Frances straceys homepage: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/art-
history/staff/frances_stracey
screen projections of footage of past and BBC News [online], http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ embracing Animal: http://www.embracinganimal.com
entertainment/arts/1550864.stm (2006).
present wars, the fraught and complex inter- 14. Kac, E. in Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond (ed. Kac, E.)
the tissue culture and Art (tc&A) project:
http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au
relationship or dialectic (of the microscopic 1 (The MIT Press, Boston, 2007).