Welcome to the interdisciplinary world of bioart, an interactive relationship between art, science and technology.

The fusion celebrates the union of creativity and scientific advancements as an approach to curiosity within the study of biology, artistic discourse and unexpected results.

Get to know the fascinating artistic works of bioart, the makers and its exhibition spaces.

THE ORIGINS OF BIOART

Bioart is the term dedicated to the relationship found and nurtured between artistic and scientific research, with a focus on living organisms, practices of biology and life sciences. 

The term itself has expanded since first being coined in 1997 by the artist Edoardo Kac. Along with several other artists, Kac wrote and signed a bioart manifesto.

“Bioart is art that literally works in the continuum of biomateriality, from DNA, proteins and cells to full organisms. Bioart manipulates, modifies or creates life and living processes,” it reads.

“We advocate for an ethical bioart: ethical with respect to humans and nonhumans”.

This particular sentence refers to the controversial aspects of the movement’s reputation for the use of live animals in their work.

BIOART AND ITS SUBCATEGORIES

Pier Luigi Capucci, an Italian writer whose work focuses on relationships between culture, science and technology, elaborated a graph that illustrates bioart’s interlinking subcategories.

Bioart, described by Capucci as “art that is alive or has living components, ecological or land art”, also encapsulates biotech art, which explores biotechnology, chromosome manipulation, genetic art, which involves DNA research and finally transgenic art, which investigates genetic engineering. 

Bioart has developed to explore and investigate the unlimited possibilities between the arts and sciences, with works even experimenting with music and biology.

BIOART PREDECESSORS

However, it could be argued that bioart’s beginnings did not start in the late 1990s and existed as early as the 20s. 

There are examples of germ paintings presented by Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) when researching the discovery and use of penicillin in 1928, and the work of Edward Steichen (1879–1973). 

In 1936, Steichen – a photographer a horticulturist, presented a solo show titled Steichen Delphiniums at the Museum of Modern Art New York, in which the artist exhibited a selection of flowers, after years of cross-breeding.

Steichen is considered the first in art history to benefit from the use of biology as an art medium.

PREEMINENT BIOARTISTS

HEATHER ACKROYD AND DAN HARVEY

British artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey (1959-/1959-) are known to create works that intersect art, activism, architecture, biology, ecology and history.

Within the series, Photosynthesis Portraits, an experimentation that first started in 1991 and refined over the years, the artists explore the living mediums of grass and sunlight as a means of complex image creation through the controlled production of chlorophyll.

Instead of recording an image on photographic film, the artists work with the light sensitivity of emergent or first shoot of tender grass from the seed, which is then never cut, resulting in large-scale portraits.

Over time and with low light, the image begins to fade and decay, demonstrating the medium’s organic and ephemeral qualities.

EDOARDO KAC

Considered one of the founders and pioneers of bioart, Eduardo Kac’s (1962-) artistic research crosses boundaries between the arts and sciences, at times considered controversial.

For the revolutionary piece Time Capsule (1997) Kac injected a pet-tracking microchip into his leg and registered himself in the tracking company’s database.

GFP Bunny (2000) involved engineering a rabbit’s genes to express the green fluorescent protein (GFP) originally found in the jellyfish Aequoria victoria, resulting in the rabbit glowing when UV light is used.

In a subsequent transgenic project, Natural History Of The Enigma (2009), Kac inserted a sequence of his own DNA into the genes of a petunia flower.

ORON CATTS AND IONAT ZURR

The Tissue Culture & Art Project is the culmination of work by the artists/researchers/curators Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr (1967-/1970-).

First established in 1996, the project investigates the use of tissue engineering as a medium for artistic expression. Among numerous works, the extensive project delves into areas such as lab-grown food, tissue-cultured clothing, semi-living sculptures and the ever-evolving relationship between humans and nonhumans.

Presented in 2022, the work titled Sunlight, Soil & Shit (De)Cycle is motivated by the ecological crisis and the need for innovation, with the aim of introducing artificial substitutes for the namesake 3S’s within agriculture production.

PAUL VANOUSE

Creator of interdisciplinary installations that address complex issues raised by techno-sciences, American artist Paul Vanouse (1967-) has worked with emerging media forms since 1990.

Today, Vanouse is a professor of art at the University of Buffalo and the founding director of the Coalesce Center for Biological Art.

The 2019 installation Labor re-created the scent of people when under strain or stressful conditions (that is, sweating), however without any involvement of human beings.

The installation is made up of three bioreactors, where each one hosts a specific collection of bacteria found on human skin when sweating. The final product concludes in the visible imprint of the sweat on a T-shirt; a reference to sweatshops and forced labour, where man and machine become one.

GEORGE GESSERT

Overlapping art and genetics, bioartist George Gessert (1944-) delves into the hybridisation and documentation of plant-breeding projects. His artistic research initially started with painting and printmaking, eventually, he began to experiment with the medium of breeding plants in the late 1970s, calling his work “genetic folk art”.

Within his book, Green Light: Toward An Art Of Evolution (MIT Press, 2010), Gessert puts into discussion man’s obsession with aesthetics throughout history and how this has led to human involvement in the breeding of certain animals and plants to achieve a certain look.

YANN MARUSSICH

Professional dancer and choreographer turned performance artist, Yann Marussich (1966-) turned heads with his presentation of Bleu ​​Provisoire during the 2001 Festival de la Batie in Geneva.

The complex work consisted of the artist immobile within a controlled setting, and slowly as the body begins to sweat, each secretion emerging from the pores and saliva is the colour blue. 

Marussich plays on the idea of movement even in moments of immobility, our body is constantly in motion as it breathes, circulates blood and exchanges messages throughout. 

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ROBERTO CUOGHI

During the Venice Biennale d’Arte 2017, Roberto Cuoghi (1973-) represented the Italian Pavilion with the project Imitatio Christi.

This was a workshop installation that moulded organic forms into the shape of Jesus Christ, which were subsequently placed in plastic igloo-shaped pods promoting bacteria growth at varying speeds, culminating in transporting the figures into a kiln, where all organic development would be hindered.

The figures would mutate with the growth of mould, bacteria, and spores; each form under the scrutiny of laboratory-esque cold lights and visitors. 

MARION LAVAL-JEANTET AND BENOIT MANGIN (L’ART ORIENTE OBJET)

L’Art Oriente Objet is an artistic collaboration composed of Marion Laval-Jeantet and Benoit Mangin, who have worked together since 1991 and are especially known for May The Horse Live In Me! a performance intertwining examples of bioart and bodyart. 

Presented at Kapelica Gallery in Ljubljana in 2011, the act entailed the transfusion of the horse’s processed blood plasma into Laval-Jeantet.

In preparation, to avoid going into anaphylactic shock on receiving the horse blood, she would be injected with different groups of horse immunoglobulins every week for three months so that her immunological system could recognise the foreign proteins.

During the performance, vials of Laval-Jeantet’s blood are extracted so as to preserve the creation of “centaur blood”.

WHERE TO FIND BIOART?

In recent decades, bioart has received more attention with opportunities to present, exhibit and discuss the works and related research.

The Ars Electronica Festival is an annual event held in Linz since 1979 dedicated to the exposition and promotion of new media arts in all of their forms. The festival is often the stage for bioart-related topics and research.

Bioart projects and artists have been the recipients of the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica within the category of Hybrid Art, such as L’Art Oriente Objet, Yann Marussich, and SymbioticA, the Centre for Excellence in Biological Arts operated by the above-mentioned Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr.

At Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, the American-Korean artist Anicka Yi (1971-) presents the exhibition Metaspore, moving between philosophy and biology, between politics and science fiction.

The exhibition hosts several of the artist’s installations, which instigate reflection on the boundaries between natural and artificial, human and non-human, materiality and immateriality.

Permanent exhibitions found around the world related to bioart include Mind The Gut at Medical Museion in Copenhagen, the Eden Project’s Invisible Worlds based in Cornwall, and the Micropia museum in Amsterdam.

 For more articles balancing art and science:

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• The Science Of Art And Art Of Science: In Depth With Semiconductor

Cover Credit: Artist Amy Karle with her artwork, The Heart of Evolution?, 2019, Photo: Amy KarleAmy Karle/Wikimedia Commons

Writer | Glesni Trefor Williams