In 1997, Eduardo Kac first coined the phrase Bio Art in his work Time Capsule. Though, around the end of 20th Century AD, this genre marked its foot steps, it thrived during the following century in works of Kac and Gessert.
The medium of this genre is always a living matter. Instead of studios the creations occurs at laboratories. The instrument of creating in this genre is biotechnology, involving cloning, genetic engineering and tissue culture. Yet it is not restricted only to the living forms. Some critic argues that all the materials used in it are not the living forms. The reconciliation is still far. The other contentious issue involves religious, ethical, social and aesthetical views.
Art or Science
- It attracts public attention like a matter of beauty; therefore it is an art.
- It is a creation; hence it is a creative product.
- It is very much science, too, as it involves cellular and sub-cellular technology.
Impact
According to Eduardo Kac, works in this genre meet the long pending urge of branching out of the limits of conventional art. In her Brave BioArt 2: Shredding the Bio, Amassing the Nano, and Cultivating Post-human life, Natasha Vita-More observes that craftsmen prosper through grasping mastery over new tools; and also a shift from the synthetic creations by exploiting of computers and electronic techniques. She argued in the book that the life factor involved in this form but not the living element by invoking Kac’s A Positive. Specifically, this work of Kac demonstrates lighting of a flame inside a mechanical robot using oxygen from previously expired blood filtered into the robot.
Using biological substances to constitute new life or creating aesthetic modifications of life like live-tissue or organisms, say bacteria built a bridge between scientific laboratories and artists. Most of the works in this genre include tissue-culturing and transgenic. The later can transform organisms’ genetic material by adding synthesized or transplanted genetic material(s) from other organisms
Resistances
It is often accused for unethical treatment of lesser beings in the name of work. Lobbyists against this practice, viz., USA Today and PETA in Norfolk, United States, blame the practitioners for vulnerability of species with small surviving population towards extinction.
You may like to visit Private Art Museum at art gallery Mumbai [http://www.privateartmuseum.com] to read more on Bio art.