Engineering Organisms into Art: the Aesthetic Élan of the Biosciences

Bioartists appropriate and interpret scientific concepts to create artworks related to activities of life. How and if the biosciences can become art will be assessed by examining the impact of genetic studies on contemporary artistic conceptualizations and representations of human, animal, and vegetal organisms. Transpositions of science into art are not a peculiarity of contemporary age, as the history of western culture has been shaped by hypotheses, theories, and discoveries travelling from the sciences to the arts. It is thus the specificity of artistic responses to specific scientific stimuli that calls for attention. Since the 1990s genomics has excited our imagination and what humans are made of has been explored from the perspective of scientifically oriented art. Systematic study of the genes has generated artistic responses involving both the construction and commodification of a symbolic imagery. The impact of genetics on artistic creativity can be comprehended by examining new forms of representation, cultural icons, and symbols, but also by assessing the commercialization of genetics research material. Extending its scope of intervention well beyond health research, medical practice, or pharmaceutical industry, the work of bioscientists resonates outside the scientific community. Popularization of genomic research has aroused strongly polarized responses, ranging from deep anxiety to unwavering optimism for the scientists’ capacity to gain deeper and deeper knowledge of the structure and function of genes and exert greater control over the course of human life. Bioscientific experiments and results obtained in the laboratories, hypotheses and theories are constantly transfused into artworks and displayed in exhibitions. Art which incorporates material from genetic research has assumed different shapes and gained public recognition as Ars Genetica, Ars Chimaera, Tissue Culture and Art, Wet Biology Art Practice: the variety of definitions shows that a new critical vocabulary is required to investigate contemporary intersections between the arts and the biosciences. Interrogated and interpreted by artists, bioscientific knowledge is used to create items which are claimed to possess aesthetic quality and generate aesthetic experience. Owing to the union of organic matter, artistic creativity, and technological processes, bioart has an enormous resonance in the social sphere. In order to understand its protean nature, the theoretical frameworks and critical tools traditionally provided by aesthetics and sociology of art need to be remoulded, and ideological components must be examined