SCIENCE AND EDUCATION

VISCERAL exhibit showcases art made with living tissue

By Ben Coxworth

18:58 February 15, 2011

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VISCERAL consists of exhibits such as The Vision Splendid, a 'living relic' made from
donated skin cells

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Should you find yourself in Dublin, pondering the social and ethical ramifications of
advances in bioscience, you really ought to check out VISCERAL: THE LIVING ART
EXPERIMENT at Trinity College’s Science Gallery. The show was put together by the
University of Western Australia’s SymboticA art-science residency program, and features 15
works of art (or are they works of science?) that incorporate living tissue, created by
SymboticA researchers from several countries. It’s intended to be an exploration of the
boundaries between art and science, and of “our changing understandings and perceptions of
life in the light of rapid developments in the life sciences and their applied technologies.” It’s
also a chance to see books grown out of human skin cells.

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“There is something that makes us a little uneasy, perhaps even queasy, about the idea of
creating artworks from living tissue,” said Science Gallery director Michael John Gorman.
“While we are increasingly comfortable with the use of digital technologies for artistic
purposes, the very idea of tissue-engineering becoming an art form makes us squirm. The
work exhibited in VISCERAL forms a series of provocations, asking us to consider the
myriad of possible implications of our new biotechnological toolkit.”
One of the exhibits is the Semi-Living Worry Dolls, created by Australia’s Oron Catts and
Ionat Zurr. Inspired by traditional Guatemalan hand-crafted worry dolls, they were reportedly
the first tissue-engineered sculptures to ever be presented “alive” in a gallery, when they
made their debut 11 years ago. The dolls are made from biodegradable polymers seeded with
living cells, and housed within a micro-gravity bioreactor. Throughout the course of the
exhibit, the cells will gradually replace the polymers, making the dolls – sort of – come to
life.

In Silent Barrage, created by the Neurotica collective in collaboration with Georgia Tech, an
array of pole-climbing robots move in response to the activity of 50,000 neurons in a petri
dish. Cameras track the movements of visitors to the exhibit, which are digitized and then
used to stimulate the neurons. In this way, the audience both dictates the activity of the
neurons, yet are also subjected to it. It is hoped that observations made in Silent Barrage may
actually help scientists better understand how to treat neurological disorders such as epilepsy.

And yes, there are the books made out of skin. Canadian Tagny Duff’s Cryobook Archives
features several handmade books, all made from human and pig tissue, skin cells, and a
synthetic biological virus. They were created using “tissue culture engineering techniques
such as transfection and immunohistochemical staining procedures along with traditional
book binding techniques,” and are housed in a library-like portable freezer.

Other SymboticA projects on display feature things like live crickets listening to a lecture on
sex, a “living relic” made from an anonymous donor’s skin cells, and a sleeping subject
whose body is moved in order to draw a picture using their brain waves.

VISCERAL: THE LIVING ART EXPERIMENT runs until February 25th.

Via New Scientist