DAILY FEEDING TIME

							PICA - BioFeel (2002)

26/1/04 3:44 pm

exhibiting: August 1 - 25, 2002
Curated by Oron Catts, SymbioticA

As part of the BioFeel exhibition at PICA Pig Wings will literally be grown by cultivating pig bone-marrow tissue into bio-absorbable polymers designed in the shape of bird, bat and pterosaurs wings. A new breed of artist has migrated from studio to laboratory to explore the new palette biological and medical technologies offer. A working laboratory will be set up in the main space of PICA to cultivate living tissue into art. SymbioticA Research Group experiment with the capabilities of a rat’s neurone. Tissue Culture & Art Project present their evolving pigs wings and the birth process of semi-living worry dolls. Adam Zaretsky (USA) debuts MMMM – an installation that stimulates more than just your mind. Amy Youngs (USA) armours a nude cactus in her sculpture Rearming the Spineless Opuntia. Marta de Menezes (Portugal) sculpts self-portraits with the make-up of her proteins. Andre Brodyk (Australia) installation derived from biotech industry warehouses, laboratories and research facilities. Each artist, with humour and irony, critique the science facts and fictions of our brave new world. This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. BioFeel has been sponsored by the University of Western Australia, School of Anatomy and Human Biology UWA, BEAP, PICA, Curtin University, Hotel Northbridge, Little Creatures. Coherent Scientific, Nikon Japan, CTEC, Jumbo Vision, Medic Vision, Plaza Cameras, DX Computers, SciTech Pty Ltd, Email Air Handling, The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology; Acouve, Acoustic Vibration Laboratories, Surrey Upholstery, the University of Newcastle, the University of New South Wales, the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the Ohio Arts Council.

A Semi-Living Worry Doll by the Tissue Culture & Art Project

DAILY FEEDING TIME :
The LIVING DOLLS AND PIGS WINGS will be fed at 3pm, daily.

links:
SymbioticA (the Art & Science Collaborative Research Lab)
http://www.pica.org.au/art02/BioFeel.html

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PICA - BioFeel (2002)

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Tissue Culture & Art Project

Fish and Chips MMMM by Adam Zaretsky BEAP site SymbioticA and The Institute of Advances Studies University of Western Australia present:

BioFeel is presented at PICA as part of The Biennale for Electronic Arts Perth (BEAP) www.beap.org

The Aesthetics of Care ?
SymbioticA Symposium
Perth Institute Contemporary Arts Symposium Monday 5 August 2002 The Aesthetics of Care - the research and applications of living biological systems into a new art practice.

Introduction
Within our lifetime we have seen the body metamorphosis into a malleable mass: rhinoplasty, lung transplants and breast enlargements are no longer met with the shock and awe of yesterday. But, advances in medical science producing controversial new areas such as gene therapy and cross-species genetic manipulation has reignited the debate about how far humans should interfere with nature. Contemporary art moves into this brave new world when PICA exhibits the largest living tissue biological art exhibition in the world. The creation of genetically modified pigs for the purpose of transplanting their organs into humans (xenotransplantation) opens up a space for the creation of ambiguous chimeras. TC&A Project (Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr and Guy Ben Ary) in their exhibit Pig Wings plays with the idea of science making the impossible possible. By cultivating pig bone-marrow stem cells into miniature models of wings TC&A anticipate the horrific (bat wing), the angelic (bird wing) and obsolete (dinosaur wing) potentials of a world where organs are made to order and pigs might fly. The work evolved from Catts and Zurr's residency in the Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and is an ongoing research and development project examining the use of tissue technologies to create Semi-Living sculptures. Catts, Zurr and Ben-Ary have won international and national acclaim for their artistic experimentation and research over the last six years in the Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A). (www.tca.uwa.edu.au). They continue their artistic experimentation within SymbioticA at UWA and have recently been named finalists in the World Technology Award for Arts 2002. PICA will house a working laboratory to exhibit Pig Wings in the forthcoming exhibition: BioFeel: art and biology from the 1-25 August. In this installation an added dimension is that frogs hearts will give the wings movement. Other work in the exhibition includes SymbioticA Research Group's MEART (aka Fish and Chips) - where rats' neurones automate a robotic arm to propose whether a semi-living cybernetic entity can be as creative and unpredictable as the mind of a living-being; Amy Youngs' (USA) Rearming the Spineless Opuntia gives a manipulated spikeless cactus armour to protect it from humans; Marta de Menezes' (Portugal) uses human chromosomes as a new form of portraiture; André Brodyk's (Australia) installation DNArt utilises genetically modified bacteria in his drawings and an interactive experiment explores the effect of vocal vibration in Adam Zaretsky's (USA) MMMM... . BioFeel Curator and artist, Oron Catts states "The art in BioFeel goes beyond the fantasy of the surrealist project. The artists are dealing with the actual wet palette of possibilities of life manipulation offered by biotechnology".
http://www.pica.org.au/art02/BioFeel.html

more >

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PICA - BioFeel (2002)

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A seminar focusing on the artistic, social and scientific implications of the use of biological/medical technologies for artistic purposes is to be held in conjunction with BioFeel. Distinguished and stimulating speakers will focus on the complexities of this new realm of scientific, artistic and humanist issues at The Aesthetics of Care? at PICA on August 5. For more information go to www.beap.org.

Pig Wings by SymbioticA

Exhibition program Presented as a part of the inaugural Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth 2002 (BEAP) www.beap.org "The art in BioFeel goes beyond the fantasy of the surrealist project. The artists are dealing with the actual wet palette of possibilities of life manipulation offered by biotechnology"
- Oron Catts, BioFeel Curator and Artist.

PICA will house a working laboratory in the forthcoming exhibition: BioFeel, from the 1-25 August. All work presented in BioFeel deals in one way or another with the relationships we form with manipulated living systems. It shifts from the protein through to the chromosome, the cell and the tissue, to the whole organism. With humour, irony and some horror - the artists in BioFeel experiment and critique the science facts and fictions of our brave new world.

MEART: (aka Fish and Chips)
SymbioticA Research Group (International)

Guy Ben Ary, Phil Gamblen, Dr. Stuart Bunt, Ian Sweetman, Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, Gil Weinberg, Matt Richards, Steve M Potter, Thomas DeMarse and Alec Shkolnik. Take some embyonic rats neurones, place them over silicon chips, connect to visual art output devices and what do you get? Can we really call this an artist? Can a semi-living cybernetic entity be as creative and unpredictable as the mind of a livingbeing? The research and development of this hypothesis continues at PICA and a laboratory in Georgia, Atlanta. A series of experiments will be performed in order to explore the relationships between the input of music, images and other stimuli and the output the neural activity expresses through robotic drawings. www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au

TISSUE CULTURE AND ARTS PROJECT
Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr and Guy Ben Ary (Australia)
Rearming the spineless Opuntia - Amy Youngs (USA)

TISSUE CULTURE AND ARTIFICIAL WOMBS grows live tissue worry dolls and the viewer is invited to confess their worries to these semi-living creatures. Is giving birth to worry dolls truly cathartic? PIG WINGS - plays with the idea of science making the impossible possible. By cultivating pig bone-marrow stem cells into models of wings, TC&A anticipate the

http://www.pica.org.au/art02/BioFeel.html

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horrific (bat wing), the angelic (bird wing) and obsolete (dinosaur wing) potentials of a world where pigs could fly.
PC2 (SymbioticA Central Laboratory) at PICA designed and constructed by Marcus Canning and Sohan Hayes

www.tca.uwa.edu.au

MMMM....
Adam Zaretsky (USA)

Vibratory Arts Research is more stimulating than it sounds. In MMMM...(Macro/Micro Music Massage) the audience is invited to become part of a live experiment by vocally vibrating each other's rear ends. Zaretsky's favourite artistic offering to public experience "is the reinsertion of fun for fun's sake into the social." Sit back, relax and put yourself under the microscope. http://www.salinaartcenter.org/uv/workhorse_site/wwww.html
Adam Zaretsky & MMMM....

REARMING THE SPINELESS OPUNTIA
Amy Youngs (USA)

Through cloning, humankind has engineered creations such as the spineless opuntia, a cactus that lacks it original defense mechanism - its spikes. Youngs has sculpted a mechanised armour to protect this unnatural plant's vulnerability. When approached its metal armor closes up and opens when people move away from it. It reveals the folly of protection in its heavy reliance on technology and the impulse to protect the vulnerable, human-engineered creation. http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~ayoungs/

NUCLIART
Marta de Menezes (Portugal)

Rather than the oils, guache and the camera, de Menezes incorporates biological material: DNA, proteins and cells as new media to explore novel ways of representation and communication. Her portraiture aspires to show more than likeness and personality by using MRI scans to reveal brain activity and she sculpts self-portraits with the makeup of her proteins. "We are witnessing" she says "the birth of a new form of art: art created in test-tubes, inside laboratories".

DNART
Andre Brodyk (Australia)

The installation 'DeoxyriboNucleicArt" is a work in progress. The inanimate sources used in this installation are fragments derived from biotech industry company warehouses, laboratories and research facilities.

Sound @ BioFeel
Opening: PICA MAIN SPACE
Microphagia Wednesday July 31 6-8 Music - HEDKIKR [Darren Moore Lindsay Vickery] Dancer - Danielle Micich Interactive Video - Lindsay Vickery Images - Yuben Moodley and Guy Ben-Ary Installation: PICA

Inner Sounds
Saturday August 3, 1-3pm

A sound-art event curated by Alan Lamb and Hannah Clemen.

http://www.pica.org.au/art02/BioFeel.html

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Somewhere between performance and installation... Inner Sounds is an immersive sound-art environment. Featuring soundscape works by Alan Lamb and Hannah Clemen, the installation invites listeners to come and lose themselves inside themselves.

Performance Nights: OrganicFUEL
Victoria High Quality
Wednesday August 7 8.30pm - Fuel Bar @ PICA Manipulated sample frenzy curated by Jon Mustard.
Exploring the non-scientific dimensions of reproduction. Erotic sound and word art, domestic and natural world sounds combined with live electronics and extended flute techniques. Multi-layered improvisations, (read playing with yourself).

BioFeel Concert PICA PERFORMANCE SPACE

HEDKIKR - InterXection
Sun August 4, 8pm
HEDKIKR: Darren Moore (Drums) Lindsay Vickery (Reeds) with Danielle Micich (MIBURI) Prepare to be shrunk to a millionth of your size and injected into the fantastic world of tissue cultures, blood clots and Russian diplomats. HEDKIKR takes you on an uncompromising ride with images provided by famed mad Sci-Artists Tissue Culture and Art (TCA: Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr and Guy Ben-Ary). The Performance incorporates the biological/endoscopical film Fantastic Voyage made in collaboration with TCA - literally taking you inside the saxophone and a journey past fish neurons, mouse cardiac muscles and rat eye circulation networks. Fantastic Voyage has been presented as part of Club Zho (Perth, June 02) and the WhatisMusic? Festival (Melbourne July 02). HEDKIKR's work emanates from an interaction that is heavily weighted toward the physical and the subconscious. It comes from the body, from under the mind - from outside. The duo have previously performed as sCrAtChScRaTcH (Totally Huge Festival 97), GrupoLipoSucto and Shmil (The Vibe Bar UK).

In Its Own Blood
Thursday August 8, 8.30pm - Fuel Bar @ PICA Noise/Extreme Music Night curated by Cat Hope
Lux Mammoth first performed this piece in the Putting On An Act Festival at PICA in 2000. Audiences have been squirming ever since. The work involves a series of small microphones inserted into a cow's ribcage that is in turn manipulated and then run through the Lux Mammoth effects rack...K Ford is an electronic musician and sampling wizard who creates beautiful noisescapes. His re-mixes are very sought after and his performances are relatively rare.

Spectral Cartography
Friday August 9, 8.30pm - Fuel Bar @ PICA An Audio-Visual Performance night curated by the Dark Science Group: Tanja Visosevic (Visual) Petro Vouris (Audio) and Deborah Robertson (choreography).
Mapping the Living Ghost - a performance examining forgotten ways of mapping the body, through alchemy and the dark spaces of biological science. The performance also includes works by cavity, an audio visual duo featuring Cat Hope and Chucky Wonkers. Their current work uses the Digital Audio Control Skirt (DACS) onto which images are projected while it is worn by the musician. cAVity have premiered this work as part of this year's BEAP.

http://www.pica.org.au/art02/BioFeel.html

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PICA - BioFeel (2002)

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Pig Wings by by the Tissue Culture & Art Project

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