Eduardo Kac
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Eduardo Kac is an American contemporary artist internationally recognized for his interactive net installations and his bio-art. Kac was born in 1962, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He lives and works in Chicago.
In 1997, Kac was the first person to have a microchip implanted in his body.[citation needed] He did this in the context of his work "Time Capsule", intending it to be a form of social commentary, claiming that it causes us to consider the relationship between people and technology. He put the microchip in the lower part of his leg, on his ankle.
When he was at Telematic Connections (where his work was being exhibited) he mentioned that the reason he chose this spot on his body was that it was where slaves were often branded. The work he had on exhibit was entitled, Teleporting an Unknown State, a piece in which Kac enables a plant in a dark room to grow with light sent around the world through the Internet by remote participants.
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[edit] As an artist
Kac considers himself a "transgenic artist," or "bio artist", using biotechnology and genetics to create provocative works that concomitantly explore scientific techniques and critique them. Kac's first transgenic artwork, titled "Genesis"' involved him taking a quote from the Bible (Genesis 1:26 - "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth"), transferring it into Morse code, and finally, translating that Morse code (by a conversion principle specially developed by the artist for this work) into the base pairs of genetics.
After obtaining the genes from a laboratory which creates genetic sequences on demand, he implanted the genes into an unspecified bacterium, which he then grew in a petri dish. This petri dish was placed in a box under an ultraviolet light (UV) which could be activated by online viewers, who could see Genesis by webcam. Kac intended to present the viewer with a philosophical problem, a dichotomy: If the viewer disagrees with allowing man to have dominion over nature as the quote from the Bible suggests, then in order to destroy the idea (i.e. activate the UV light which causes mutation in the genes, thereby altering the statement), he must assert his own power over nature, thereby in a way contradicting himself. A viewer with the opposite viewpoint would have the opposite-but-equally-problematic dilemma.
[edit] GFP Bunny
In what is probably his most famous work, Alba, Kac commissioned a French laboratory to create a green-fluorescent rabbit; a rabbit implanted with a Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) gene from a type of jellyfish. Under a specific blue light, the rabbit fluoresces green. "The PR campaign included a picture of Kac holding a white rabbit and another, iconic image of a rabbit photographically enhanced to appear green."[1] In 2000, Alba was presented in Avignon, France. Kac's aim was for Alba to live with his family, but prior to the scheduled release of Alba to Kac, the lab retracted their agreement and decided that Alba should stay in the lab.
Whether Alba is alive today remains an open question. GFP plants, fish, and mammals have been long-term residents of science laboratories. The GFP gene is typically used as a type of marker, that, when attached to a separate genetic modification or gene, illustrates where that symbiotic gene manifests in the organism. However, Kac used GFP as a social marker, in a symbolic (not scientific) manner, to raise questions about how society constructs the idea of difference. Notably, since Alba's conception, GFP zebrafish have hit the commercial market under the trademarked name, GloFish.
Kac, in response to the laboratory's retraction of Alba's liberty, flies a flag outside of his home, sporting a silhouette of a green rabbit.
In his 1998 manifesto on Transgenic Art, Eduardo Kac proposed to use GFP to create a fluorescent dog "GFP K-9". This project never came to fruition.[2]
[edit] References
- Notes
- ^ Pentecost, Claire. "Outfitting the Laboratory of the Symbolic: Toward a Critical Inventory of Bioart". In Beatrice, da Costa. Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism and Technoscience. The MIT Press. pp. 107. ISBN 978-0262042499.
- ^ Eduardo Kac: GFP K-9, Media Art Net website.
- Bibliography
- Dickey, Christopher. I Love My Glow Bunny, Wired, April 2001.
- Britton Sheilah and Dan Collins (eds.). "The Eighth Day: The Transgenic Art of Eduardo Kac", Tempe: ASU, DAP, New York, 2003, ISBN 0972429107.
- Fred Forest. Art et Internet, Editions Cercle D'Art, Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi, pp. 74–75.
- Kac, Eduardo. "Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond", MIT Press, Cambridge, 2007, ISBN 0-262-11293-0.
- Kac, Eduardo. "Telepresence and Bio Art—Networking Humans, Rabbits and Robot", University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005. ISBN 0472068105.
- Rossi, Elena Giulia (ed.). "Eduardo Kac : Move 36" Filigranes Éditions, Paris, 2005, ISBN 2350460126.
[edit] External links
- Eduardo Kac's website
- Kac's Bio Art
- Kac's Interactive Works
- Kac's books, videos and multiples
- Kac's Media Poetry and Language Art
- The Role of Images and Aesthetic Experience in Bio Art: Eduardo Kac in conversation with Toni Hildebrandt
- Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond (MIT Press/Leonardo Books)
- Al Jazeera English interview on YouTube
- Podcast interview with Eduardo Kac
- Eduardo Kac interview on Digitalarti Mag
- Telematic Connections
