Saturday, November 9, 2013

Week 6 | BioTech + Art

Bio-Technology is always being at the forefront of development of human kind, and it needs imagination and creativity of art to stimulate its further development. Bio Technology intends to solve various types of problems people meet, so it is dynamic and constantly evolving, and often it crosses the borderline and touches other fields of study. One good example would be the collaboration between Bio Technology and art, not simply mixed, but rather in a sense of chemical reaction.
In Professor Victoria’s lecture, I am greatly inspired by the example of Joe Davis. I cannot agree any more with his perspective, which goes as following, “The most absurd things are connected in very absurd ways. I like to take the least connected things and try to build connections between them.” Davis made many great works both contributed to bio-techs and arts, including Microvenus, a project in protest of the censorship of radio messages sent into deep space. Davis’ idea is to put the human genome into a hardy strain of bacteria and send it into deep space. Additionally, the sculpture Earth Sphere, a landmark fog fountain at Kendall Square near the MIT campus; Rubisco Stars, a transmission of a message to nearby stars from the Arecibo Observatory radiotelescope in Puerto Rico; New Age Ruby Falls, a project to create an artificial aurora using a 100,000 watt electron beam fired into the magnetosphere from a NASA space shuttle. His works are not just of value of scientific and artistic study, but more importantly, Davis eschews the art versus science argument, insisting that he speaks both languages and could not possibly tear the two disciplines apart in his own mind.

The impact of vinculum of Bio Techs and arts on the human society is immeasurably significant. It shows the public how to create enormous value through trans-boundary scientific studies. Meanwhile, it raises people’s concerns on ethical standards of scientists and artists.

Citations:
1. Gibbs, W. Wayt. “Art as a Form of Life.” Scientific America. N.p.. Web. 9 Nov 2013. <http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w03/davis_j_webarchive/davis_profile_sciam/jd.htm>
2. ”Arts news.” . N.p., 13 2001. Web. 9 Nov 2013. <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/artsnews-0613.html>.
4. Davis, Joe . “RuBisCo Stars” and the Riddle of Life.” . N.p.. Web. 9 Nov 2013. <http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=10283>.

5. ”Joe Davis.” Wikipedia. N.p.. Web. 9 Nov 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Davis_(artist)>.

1 comment:

  1. Hey SiJIa! This post was very interesting. I really enjoyed your description about Joe Davis, and his impact in the field of combining biotech and art. He has conducted many experiments that combine these two topics, so which were extraordinary. I agree with your point that biotech and art need imagination and creativity for its development. At some point, there needs to be growth within that field, and the only way for that to happen is to expand their ideas further.

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