Stranger Visions by Heather Dewey-Hagborg is equal parts creepy and cool.
About the project:
In Stranger Visions artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg creates portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material collected in public places. Working with the traces strangers unwittingly leave behind, Dewey-Hagborg calls attention to the impulse toward genetic determinism and the potential for a culture of genetic surveillance.
Artist Penelope Kenny is creating her own taxonomy of animals for an imagined future.
About her work:
Her work explores the relationship between humans and other animals, especially in connection to transhumanism, evolution, hybrids and biotechnology. Through her hybrid creatures she investigates the potential outcomes of humans trying to control evolution through genetic manipulation and scientific tampering with the species boundaries.
You can follow her here on Tumblr
Katharine Dowson’s Chromosome work includes her Self Portrait (top) and her Chromosome Puzzle (bottom). Both pieces feature her own genetic markers.
All That I Am by Koby Barhad is an art project that imagines how easy it would be to clone Elvis using materials readily available on the internet and contemplates the implications of such an endeavor.
Barhad on his work:
From a speck of hair to a mouse model. A combination of three online services can make this project possible. Hair samples of Elvis Presley, bought on ebay were sent to a gene sequencing lab to identify different behavioural traits (varied from sociability, athletic performance to obesity and addiction). Using this information, transgenic mice clones with parallel traits were produced. The genetically cloned models of Elvis (in this case) are tested in a collection of various contemporary scientific mouse model environments, simulating some of the significant biographical circumstances of his life.
Is it possible to quantify our life through a series of conditions and events? What are the aspects of life that are responsible in making us ourselves? Does buying a pre-owned item gives one the legal right to another individual’s genetic data? Can mouse models of ourselves help us prepare for possible futures or will it impose them on us? Will we make different choices Re-living the same life? Can a mouse be Elvis? What makes you believe it can be?
If you were hoping to clone Madonna, it might not be so easy. She is already taking steps to make sure there won’t be any unauthorized versions of her by hiring her own DNA sterilization crew.
From Francesca Dalla Benetta’s project Genetic Experiment
Extracts of works by artist Gina Czarnecki, who makes films, installations, public art works and sculpture which emphasise human relationships to disease, evolution and genetic research.
The Bluecoat in London will be hosting a retrospective of Czarnecki’s work from Friday, Dec. 9 - Sunday, Feb. 19. In addition to her previous projects, she will be debuting some new work:
Significantly the exhibition introduces Czarnecki’s latest works. Wasted is a series of sculptures that explore the use of human tissue in art, the life-giving potential of ‘discarded’ body parts and their relationship to myths and history. The works draw attention to timely concerns such as stem cell research and issues surrounding the process of informed consent. Co-commissioned by the Bluecoat and Imperial College London, Palaces is a resin sculpture and participatory artwork made from thousands of milk teeth donated by children around the UK. Palaces will tour to the Science Museum, Imperial College and the Centre of the Cell, London in 2012, and the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry in 2013.
These strangely compelling/disturbing images are the creations of Lucy & Bart, a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess.
About their work:
An instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement.
Hunter Cole is an artist and a geneticist who aims to reinterpret science through art. Click here to learn what science is behind each of these paintings.
Mauro Perucchetti’s Jelly Baby Family sculpture
Peruccchetti on his piece:
12 years ago I created a body of work inspired by the dilemma between cloning and religion, and cloning and medical ethics. I decided to use the jelly baby as an impersonation of cloned mankind. I was trying to capture the ambiguity that could be present in a cloned being. On first glance, they seem very sweet, but from certain angles, they can look slightly sinister, especially on a large scale.
In the current version, ‘Jelly Baby Family 2011’, they could easily embody the unity of family and the multicultural aspect of modern society that is so prevalent, especially in London.
Nana Bagdavadze’s colorful DNA inspired paintings
From her statement:
I became fascinated by DNA after a profound and successful experience as a bone marrow donor to my sister. Double Helix represents the iconic symbol of life and of constant change, rebirth and healing, a tiny building block that makes us all the same but grants us distinct individuality. I am inspired by the mystery it holds, by the beauty and the rhythm of its form. Like the DNA ladder itself, the arts and science have evolved together by influencing and feeding of each other throughout history. In my work I convey the healing powers of arts and the passion that drive many breakthroughs in science…
Finally, a portrait that reflects who you are down to every last gene. These are DNA portraits and they are offered by DNA11. You can get your DNA read and printed (top) or you can have a barcode made up that when read will show your entire maternal lineage (bottom).
Image description: This unique view of DNA was created using X-ray data from real DNA molecules. The chemical bonds that crisscross the center of the molecule have been removed so it is easier to see the double helix.
Photo courtesy of the National Science Foundation by Kenneth Eward, BioGrafx Scientific and Medical Images, Ovid, Michigan
‘Genetic Portraits’ Comparing the Faces of Family Members by Ulric Collette.
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