LIFE 2.0: artifice to synthesis

 LIFE 2.0: artifice to synthesis was an RiAus exhibition showing from 6 April – 30 June 2011

From the Curator, Dr Melinda Rackham

Artifice

Life on Earth occurs in an astounding variety of forms. Animals, bacteria, fungi, and plants coexist in modern ecosystems with life forms developed by Synthetic Biology.

Where once human craftsmanship and inventiveness augmented our species and its resources, today the synthesis of molecular life fashions novel organisms to ensure our survival. The LIFE 2.0 exhibition investigates wider social, cultural and ethical perspectives on the artifice and synthesis of life.

The selective breeding of animals and plants for companionship, labour, consumption and entertainment is perhaps one of the oldest examples of human biological manipulation. However in an era when animals are bred for human organ harvesting, we need to examine our symbiotic or perhaps parasitic relationship with the animal kingdom.

Designer Revital Cohen considers alternate scenarios of humane co-existence. In Life Support she proposes that transgenic animals be transformed into holistic medical devices providing both companionship and organ support for humans. This healing relationship becomes intensely emotionally and physically intimate as the respiratory and renal animals restore their human’s functionality with breath and blood.

While humans and animals can be paired, they can also be spliced together. RiAus has commissioned Australian cross media artist Deborah Kelly to bring her potent paper montages to life. The outcome is Beastliness vividly animated vignettes of surreally synthetic creatures. Women morph into hybrid forms that already exist in the vernacular of the feminine – such as birds, foxes, bunnies, tigers and chicks. Highly stylised emblems of artifice, Kelly’s beasts walk an elegant line between fantasy, fashion and the femme fatale.

The flip side of chaotic recombination is controlling undesirable reproduction. In Strategies in Genetic Copy Prevention, Richard Pell documents determined and directed species extinction through the prevention of an organism’s self-copying. Pell’s Center for PostNatural History, which collects and exhibits organisms that have been altered through selective breeding or genetic engineering, has developed a new exhibit for LIFE 2.0. A Selection of Noteworthy Genetically Engineered Bacteria lets us peek into the natural habitats of newly created organisms.

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Life and death depends on complex cooperative relationships between different species. It is not all altruistic, however, as we coexist in networks to ensure that we as connected species flourish. This coming together to create a greater whole is the basis of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project. The worldwide project was inspired by geometric models of hyperbolic space, originally developed using crochet by mathematician Dr Daina Taimina. Sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim adopted Dr Taimina’s techniques to crochet a woollen homage to Australia’s endangered Great Barrier Reef.

Manifesting the mimicry of macrocosm and microcosm, this exploration of higher geometry and what has been considered feminine handicraft, highlights the deep connection of life on Earth. For the duration of the exhibition South Australian groups will crochet natural and synthetic fibres into marine organisms such as kelps, corals, sponges and nudibranchs that embody hyperbolic geometry. The RiAus Adelaide Reef project draws together active networks across diverse communities to share their knowledge and skills, while growing a sculptural Reef in the gallery.

Synthesis

Synthetic biology has been most commonly understood over the past century as engineering new biological systems and sustainable tools through the manipulation of DNA. Biotech-labs around the world are working to address major global issues such as renewable energy production, environmental preservation and remediation and human disease.

Over the past decade or so artists have been working in collaboration with scientists to create Bio-Art – the first new art movement of the 21^st Century. Australia is a major generator of this artform, with groups such as SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia engineering biological art forms whose natural habitat lies in galleries and museums.

Often these collaborations take up the challenge of seeking solutions to the big global issues and in 2009 seven Cambridge University undergraduates joined forces with designers Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and James King to create a new life form. Their genetically engineered bacteria E. chromi, secretes different colours in the presence of chemical signals.

Bringing disease monitoring to the most intimate arena, The Scatalog, in LIFE 2.0 prepares us for self inspection for self protection. It starts with eating or drinking the E.chromi which colonise the gastrointestinal tract and colours the faeces in vivid hues. Each colour signals health or genetic susceptibility to disease, bringing new meaning to the phrase ‘colour my day’.

Film makers, as well, are producing utopian and dystopian visions of daily life in a future biotech society. Highlights of the first Bio:Fiction Science, Art & Film Festival, in May 2011 at Vienna’s Museum of Natural History, will premiere at RiAus during LIFE 2.0. Including an Australian film, the Festival will give a fresh take on synthetic cinematic scenarios.

Overturning our notions of nature and technology, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg poses potentially lethal biological scenarios in A Natural History of the Synthetic Future. Here synthetic organisms colonise the moist crevices and vital organs of our bodies, to produce surprising recombination and unforseen pathologies. Ginsberg’s visually seductive speculations of synthetic infection in human lungs, teeth, kidneys and colons, resonate deeply on the visceral level.

LIFE 2.0 asks more questions than it answers. How can we determine what is natural when life is built from scratch and artifice is achieved by synthesis? How does the definition of life change with human endeavor and scientific exploration? Is Synthetic Biology pure engineering; dangerously playing God; or a spontaneous working together of different species to create a better world?

Our vistas profoundly expand when we consider the intricate interdependencies of all life forms, whether created over time by artifice or through synthesis. The only certainty is that the Kingdom of Synthetica is now a firmly grafted branch of the ever-evolving Tree of Life.