an ancient myth becomes reality
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For The St. Petersburg Times
Bulatov at work in his laboratory. One of the aims of Bulatov's ongoing project is to create a glowing cactus.
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The boundaries between art and science are being blurred and, in Russia, it's happening in Kaliningrad. Dmitry Bulatov is one of a small, but growing, number of artists around the world who are using techniques from genetic engineering to create a new form of art known as Ars Chimera (sometimes called transgenic art). The chimera was a creature in ancient Greek mythology that had a lion's head, a goat's body and a dragon's tail. Bulatov, the curator of the Kaliningrad branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art, is running a project called "Consciousness on the Alert" in conjunction with Moscow's Ivanovsky Virology Institute. One of the project's aims - although currently on hold because of lack of financing, according to Bulatov - is the creation of a florescent, or glowing, cactus, by introducing genetic material from bioluminscent - naturally glowing - organisms (in this case, a cone jellyfish and a sea anemone) into a Lophophora cactus - a traditional food of North American Indians, widely known for its drastic hallucinogenic properties. Genetically modified art made its first public appearance in 1936, when photographer Edward Steichen exhibited new varieties of delphinium flowers at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The movement started by Steichen was later named Ars Genetica, and was based on principles of heredity codified in the 1850s and 1860s by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel - although, as Bulatov pointed out, humans had been using selective breeding for thousands of years previously. With the discovery of DNA by Francis Crick and John Watson in 1953 and the subsequent revolution in microlevel genetic engineeering, a whole new world of possibilities opened up. The first artistic use of genetic engineering - in effect, the first work of Ars Chimera - was "Microvenus," a 1996 project by American artist Joe Davies, with help from Harvard University biologist Dana Boyd, that involved inserting a section of synthetic DNA into an E. Coli bacterium. Today, the trend is growing worldwide, and its techniques, taken from genetic and biochemical science, are increasingly sophisticated - as well as attracting increasing ethical attention and criticism, as seen with Eduardo Kac's 2000 project "GFP Bunny," in which the Brazilian artist genetically engineered a white rabbit, which he named Alba, that glows green under special blue light. In addition to his practical work, Bulatov has also edited what he calls an anthology of works about Ars Chimera theory in Russia. The book, which also covers aspects of biomedicine, genetic engineering and nanorobotics, includes contibutions from artists, critics, art historians and philosophers, as well as Bulatov himself. Andrei Vorobei recently went to Kaliningrad to interview him. q:What attracted you to Ars Chimera? a:With regard to genetic art in general, I'm tired of seeing "dead" works of art, like pictures, photographs and the like. I'm interested in living art that develops in time. As for Ars Chimera, there are two main reasons. First, being a contemporary artist, I'm interested in a new physical medium for of modern art. With Ars Chimera, we have a biological medium, which is why we talk about moist, or wet, media - a biological carrier or interface. So, for me, it is a new medium with a bright future. Second, I'm doing it because it is dangerous. What I'm doing is a form of rhetoric - by doing it, I'm warning people about the dangerous nature of these techniques. This sort of art engineering has a clearly expressed precautionary character - by fixing a failure of modern science and engineering, it obtains a human measure, and shows us that the world was once one thing and can become something completely different. q:Where does the science end and the art begin? In other words, what is the difference here between a scientist and an artist? a:The main difference is that the scientist is interested in the practical use of these technologies, like an advisor. For instance, insulin was created using transgenic techniques. But it's difficult to imagine a scientist wanting to create a trangenic rabbit that glows green under special lighting, as Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac did with his "GFP Bunny" project. It's important to understand that, at the current stage of development of genetic engineering, one chimera organism or another can be created without any problems. But the artist is interested in something else. We're now at the stage when biotechnologies have been given "public-service" properties. Now, an artist can use such technologies to create an artistic product. These products are no longer seen as being a part of science - discoveries, inventions and patents are irrelevant here. Of course, the work of the [Ars Chimera] artist has a scientific background, but it is directed toward other areas and contexts, be they social, philosophical, mythological or artistic. An Ars Chimera artist focuses all his attention on the resources for getting the results and on his own thoughts, rather than on manufacturing a product, in which a scientist is interested. Another interesting example is the utopian project "Pig's Wings" [from 2002], by Australian artists Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts, who attempted to use living pig tissue to construct and grow a semi-living wing-shaped object and, therefore, to make us wonder if pigs actually could fly one day. Obviously, this "rhetoric surrounding the development of new biotechnologies" lies in the field of art rather than of serious science. Chimeric science and Ars Chimera overlap more in Ars Chimera design, which can be seen as a form of applied science and art. The main activity now in the field is the construction of a GFP [Green Florescent Protein] catalog. It already includes 26 GFP-like proteins taken from different kinds of organisms - soft and madreporite corals, ctenophores [comb jellyfish], actinias [sea anenomes] and the like - that have the ability to floresce, with colors ranging from blue-green to ruby red. This produces the possibility of genetically creating an art object with two, three or even four colors simultaneously or, in other words, the GFP-type fibers can be built into other organisms to make it change color, as was the case with Kac's rabbit. The GFP catalog, therefore, can be seen as the modern artist's palette, and Ars Chimera design becomes a more complex and varied media technology on the basis of which tomorrow's art technologies will be developed. For instance, a housewife will be able to order a plant from an Ars Chimera designer to go with the color of her wallpaper. q:What is new in the forms of being of Ars Chimera works? a:What's new is the form of the proof, or documentation, of this art - you can't present a photo or a video, as it could have been created with Adobe PhotoShop or another computer program. Microlevel art requires another form of exhibiting. Another interesting feature is connected with a remark by well-known art historian Boris Grois: For a long time, a momentary perception of art was required from a viewer but, in the second half of the 20th century, temporal art forms appeared, art that unfolds over time, like video art and performance art. As for Ars Chimera, we already have a bio-temporal art form. First, you can be in touch with this art object, and your emotional perception of a live object will be higher than of a dead object. Second, like you, it changes over time. q:The main problem here seems to be that these new technologies are very expensive for artists and require a deep knowledge of biology, at least, which makes them accessible to only a few artists. a:Yes, but we can also talk about the "socialization" of the technologies. As soon as the technologies are "socialized," as soon as they come out of the scientific lab and become accessible to ordinary people, then artists who are interested - and also feel that they can realize themselvs through these technologies - begin to use the technologies and to expand their practices into different areas, using different media. As a simple example, video art appeared when the first video cameras went on sale - i.e., they were socialized. Personally, I think that [video] technology, or practice, is not cutting-edge for modern art. In other words, the level of modernity of video artists is open to question. q:How do you see the level of socialization of Ars Chimera? a:I'm talking about a different level of socialization. For example, 30 years ago, you could buy a camera and you had to know in detail how it worked and how to take photographs, since you had to do it at home. Now, you can buy a camera without needing to know how it works and without needing to understand the printing process, because you can send [the film] to the photo studio. The camera is now at a higher level of socialization, which the artist can explot. It's the same with other things, and must be the same with Ars Chimera technologies. In the end, the artist will not need to know much about biology, For instance, it will be possible to order an Ars Chimera project and only have to specify the concept. I'm exaggerating, certainly, and omitting a lot, but it will be something like this. At the moment, undoubtedly, it requires detailed knowledge; I spent more than a year on it. Additionally, it can't exist at the moment without a well-equipped scientific lab, constant consultation with experts and a continual flow of financing. In general, Ars Chimera is currently at a low level of socialization but, as I said, it is subject to change. First, [the development of Ars Chimera] will depend on legal limitations, which are, obviously, necessary, as these techniques could seriously damage nature. There are already rules in place limiting access to labs, which techniques can be used, etc. So it will depend on the character and intensity of the restrictions. q:Where do you stand in ethical terms? How would you formulate your position? a:I've been asked about this many times, and I don't have an unequivocal, prepared answer. It's a living topic for me. As I only work with plants, some problems are easy to prevent. Rigid control is required here, in biosafety terms. q:Returning to the rabbit, in simple terms, how does the rabbit feel? The common question is: "Do you have the right to do this?" a:No, I don't have the right but, in this case, I usually point out that, at the moment, lots of scientific experiments are carried out on animals - monkeys, mice, etc. Monuments have been erected to Pavlov's dogs. Ignoring my art project for a moment, I think that imposing restrictions is absolutely impossible. Limiting any form of experiment is impossible, as is limiting the development of technologies and new techniques. It is outside our competence. It's already impossible to stop [the development of Ars Chimera]. If I don't do it, somebody else will. The genie has been let out of the bottle, and it's impossible to put him back. The best we can do is to work [as Kac said of his rabbit], "with great care, acknowledging the complex issues thus raised and, above all, with a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created." Dmitry Bulatov's book, "BioMediale. Contemporary Society and Genomic Culture" will be released in June in Russian and English by New York firm Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. Links: www.ncca.smufsa.nu/chimaera (Russian only); userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/links/wilson.artlinks2.html; for Ars Chimera projects, check: www.ekac.org (Eduardo Kac); www.tca.uwa.edu.au/pig/pig_main.html (The Pig Wings Project)
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