Amplifying AmbiguitiesArt on the Fringes of Biotechnology

Since the 1980s, bioart has emerged as an important art form alongside the transition to the 21st century, often described, both optimistically and ominously, as the “biotech century.” This doctoral dissertation studies artists’ engagements with wet biotechnologies, considering bioart in relation to the related approaches of DIYbio and biodesign. The thesis navigates the tension between bioart’s topical and methodological relationship to biotechnology and its claims to some other aesthetic quality defining it as art.

What is the specificity of bioart in relation to related phenomena on the topic of biotechnology? The author contends that bioart is a heterogeneous field that is, in important ways, singular as an artistic approach to the biotechnosciences, while simultaneously being closely interlinked with DIYbio and biodesign, as well as biotechnology and the art world. This thesis is based on a case study performed at the SymbioticA Centre for Excellency in Biological Arts, supplemented by participant observation in numerous other contexts, including community laboratories, workshops, visits to exhibitions and conversations with practitioners of bioart, DIYbio and biology.

What ethical issues do bioartworks raise and address? How are these practices performed and perceived? What possibilities and challenges do they carry? The results of the research show that art can give nonspecialists an increased understanding of biotechnosciences and their impact on society, but also that artists are uncomfortable with focus on the function of their art. There is a strong sense that art needs to convey something more than instrumentalist aims.

Laboratory work at SymbioticA, artist Benjamin Forster doing tissue culture work, 2013.

(© Nora Vaage)