Reinhard Nestelbacher
Gerfried Stocker
(spanish)
New technologies allow artists to experiment with new materials and methods. But this is only possible when science and art draw much closer to one another. Due to the possibilities of molecular biology living human cells, bacteria, embryos or whole organisms are becoming part of a new art, sometimes called bio-art. With the help of the GFP molecule (green fluorescence protein), for instance, unusual new artificial creatures have recently been created - glowing mice, fish, plants or bacteria. It allows transforming organisms as image-generating “apparatuses”.
GFPixel is a “painting” made of genetically transformed bacteria. These organisms are cultivated in about 4000 Petri-dishes that are arranged as a portrait. Like on digital screens part of the bacteria produce the green light – the GFP-gene is switched ON and in the other part the GFP-gene is ”switched OFF”.
The green fluorescence protein (GFP) is, strictly speaking, the only known fluorescence protein whereby the glow is actually caused by a part of the protein itself. The unusual molecule was discovered in the 60s in the luminescent jellyfish Aequorea victoria. From the very start, the protein’s most striking characteristic was that it fluoresced an intensive green colour when exposed to ultraviolet light. One of the most important cell-biological applications of GFP in the molecular sciences is its use as a reporter gene or marker, whereby the GFP-gene is attached to a particular gene that is to be investigated. Since this procedure does not disturb the main protein in many cases, the appended gene can be regarded as a “molecular lamp.” Wherever the gene being investigated is present, the glowing can be recognized through the use of the appropriate methods. This enables scientists to identify the protein’s area of effectiveness and to establish its concentration. This also makes it possible to analyze the new genetic “switches; the so-called promoters, and their activities in organisms. Meanwhile, as a result of these interesting characteristics, the protein has been used to answer numerous questions.
Life is digital?
Most people are familiar with the barcode- like depictions of genetic material, but only a very few can perceive what they mean or how these pictures come about. So it is with the depiction of genetic information as well: the four “Ietters”; A,C,G and T, symbols for the four chemical bases of DNA, have come to symbolize the decoding of the genetic code of life. A gene is thus portrayed in a language that does not appear dissimilar to the binary code of the computer. Meanwhile, this has become associated with the view held by laypersons that with the decoding of the databank of the human being – that is the genome - the concept of life can also be technically explained in such a digital fashion. This is a reductionist view that strengthens the concept of scientific omnipotence. One reason why the effect of such images is to spread misconceptions is that neither the media nor scientists seriously reflect upon their consequences.
GFPixel plays with this phenomenon: Life is changed and used to form a digital – the GFP-gene is switched on/off – pixel picture of a woman. But the picture is living and dying during the exhibition – but nevertheless not losing the capability to glow and form the pixel-art. Life as “Image-generating apparatus”
A special aspect of artificially fluorescent bacteria is the encounter with the cell as a living system or with the organism as an “image-generating apparatus”.
These creatures are thus not the objective of art; rather, they are the end product and the material. Not that it would be something novel to use organisms as part of a work of art, but it nevertheless reaches a completely new dimension. The organisms are indeed the products of a process of scientific inquiry, but they are above all living systems. This means by definition that they are capable of independent metabolism, that they have the ability to reproduce themselves, and that they have the possibility of changing their genetic background.
Through the use of pigments in living systems, the processes that take place within a cell - which have actually been schematically described - can be shifted into a new world of imagery. The phenomenon of “life” is thus in a very unusual way given a face and a graphic presence that are no longer as abstract as the sequence of letters of the genetic code.
GFPixel plays with the border between living world and the digital world, it uses genetically new created organisms as “material” to form a classical panel – the portrait of a woman. It seems to be digital but the portrait lives and dies during the exhibition.
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Gerfried Stocker
born 1964, media artist. In 1991, he founded x-space, an independent working group of artists and technicians specialized in the realization of interdisciplinary projects. In this framework, numerous installations, performances and exhibition projects have been carried out in the field of interaction, robotics and telecommunications. He has also been responsible for the conception and realization of various worldwide radio network projects. Since 1995, he has been artistic and managing director of the Ars Electronica Center and, since 1996, together with Christine Schöpf, artistic co-director of Ars Electronica Festival.
Reinhard Nestelbacher
born in 1968, molecular biologist and science educator/popularizer; studied at the University of Salzburg where he is a member of the school’s allergy research project staff; has headed unusual scientific projects, including those at Ars Electronica 1999 and 2000 (Sex i(n) motion & Sperm Race), Province Fair Graz 2000, Allergy Congress–Salzburg 2001, Science in the Shopping Center 2001, and the laboratory of the vCell project of the Max Planck Society in Berlin; the mission of DNA-Consult, founded in 2000, is to help introduce science to the public in a new, understandable way, and thus to maintain an objective discussion about it.
