ARCHIVE: Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology
This project is no longer active.
View and read about all of the artworks and artists from the 2019-2020 NC State exhibition.ART’S WORK 2.0: University of Pittsburgh
The next iteration of Art’s Work/Genetic Futures, the new exhibition expands on conversations that began here at NC State, featuring an entirely different slate of artworks.
EXHIBITION CATALOG
A full-color, 144-page, printed catalog of the exhibition is available through UNC Press. The catalog is also viewable as a PDF online.
SYMPOSIUM
Symposium – Art’s Work/Genetic Futures Exhibition, Oct 18, 2019 at Gregg Museum, NC State from GES Center, NC State on Vimeo.
To jump to a specific speaker’s response, there are two options:
- Video chapters: Each speaker’s response is marked directly on the video timeline above, or
- Timestamp (00:00): Opens a new window on Vimeo at that speaker’s response
Clicking on the linked titles will take you to that artwork’s image, description and artist bio on the Artworks page.
SYMPOSIUM
Symposium – Art’s Work/Genetic Futures Exhibition, Oct 18, 2019 at Gregg Museum, NC State from GES Center, NC State on Vimeo.
To jump to a specific speaker’s response, there are two options:
- Video chapters: Each speaker’s response is marked directly on the video timeline above, or
- Timestamp (00:00): Opens a new window on Vimeo at that speaker’s response
Clicking on the linked titles will take you to that artwork’s image, description and artist bio on the Artworks page.
Speaker Responses to Art’s Work/Genetic Futures:
Download the symposium program
- (00:45) Welcome from Fred Gould
- (04:58) Molly Renda and Jim Holland on From Teosinte to Tomorrow (begin audio re-dub)
- (08:48) Jennifer Kuzma on In Posse: the making of female sperm by Charlotte Jarvis
- (13:21) Darrell Stover on Terra et Venti by Joel Ong (end audio re-dub)
- (18:25) Carole Saravitz on Errorareum by Adam Zaretsky
- (24:24) Jen Baltzegar on Chemical Bouquet II and Miracle Grow by Kirsten Stolle
- (31:17) Helen Burgess on America Project by Paul Vanouse
- (41:03) Mark Olsen on Lucky Mice by Joe Davis and Dana Dal Bo
- (51:30) Nora Haenn on Fragments by Emeka Ikebude
- (57:46) Amy Sheck on Baroque Biology by Jennifer Willet
- (1:06:22) Elizabeth Pitts on The Mermaid De-extinction Project by Rich Pell
- (1:13:42) Todd Kuiken on the 2018 MICA BioDesign Challenge Team’s Kerasynth
- (1:21:57) Chris Tonelli on Novel Ecosystem Generator by Aaron Ellison and David Buckley-Borden
- (1:28:24) Christian Maltecca on Sire by Maria McKinney
- (1:36:05) Fred Gould on We Make Our Own Luck Here by Ciara Redmond
- (1:49:23) Audience comments, including Jen Baltzegar on Stranger Visions by Heather Dewey-Hagborg
SYMPOSIUM
Symposium – Art’s Work/Genetic Futures Exhibition, Oct 18, 2019 at Gregg Museum, NC State from GES Center, NC State on Vimeo.
To jump to a specific speaker’s response, there are two options:
- Video chapters: Each speaker’s response is marked directly on the video timeline above, or
- Timestamp (00:00): Opens a new window on Vimeo at that speaker’s response
Clicking on the linked titles will take you to that artwork’s image, description and artist bio on the Artworks page.
Speaker Responses to Art’s Work/Genetic Futures:
Download the symposium program
- (00:45) Welcome from Fred Gould
- (04:58) Molly Renda and Jim Holland on From Teosinte to Tomorrow (begin audio re-dub)
- (08:48) Jennifer Kuzma on In Posse: the making of female sperm by Charlotte Jarvis
- (13:21) Darrell Stover on Terra et Venti by Joel Ong (end audio re-dub)
- (18:25) Carole Saravitz on Errorareum by Adam Zaretsky
- (24:24) Jen Baltzegar on Chemical Bouquet II and Miracle Grow by Kirsten Stolle
- (31:17) Helen Burgess on America Project by Paul Vanouse
- (41:03) Mark Olsen on Lucky Mice by Joe Davis and Dana Dal Bo
- (51:30) Nora Haenn on Fragments by Emeka Ikebude
- (57:46) Amy Sheck on Baroque Biology by Jennifer Willet
- (1:06:22) Elizabeth Pitts on The Mermaid De-extinction Project by Rich Pell
- (1:13:42) Todd Kuiken on the 2018 MICA BioDesign Challenge Team’s Kerasynth
- (1:21:57) Chris Tonelli on Novel Ecosystem Generator by Aaron Ellison and David Buckley-Borden
- (1:28:24) Christian Maltecca on Sire by Maria McKinney
- (1:36:05) Fred Gould on We Make Our Own Luck Here by Ciara Redmond
- (1:49:23) Audience comments, including Jen Baltzegar on Stranger Visions by Heather Dewey-Hagborg
The Genetic Engineering and Society (GES) Center, NC State University Libraries, and Gregg Museum of Art & Design hosted a full-day symposium to discuss the Art’s Work/Genetic Futures exhibition. The symposium brought together artists, humanists, and social/natural scientists, using the exhibition as a departure point for conversations about the future of biotechnology and genetics.
The exhibition provokes questions about who has the standing to comment on or even create our genetic futures. It shows how artists and designers can contribute materially, rhetorically, and conceptually to biotechnology’s development. The selected works question the all-too-common assumption that scientists and engineers hold the power to create new futures that will come to pass without the input of other people. By highlighting artists’ contributions in these areas and bringing the public into the conversation as a partner rather than a recipient of technical knowledge, visitors will be encouraged to consider the contributions artists and scientists are making toward shaping our genetic futures, the effects these innovations and ideas will have on their own lives, and their own roles in this process.
The symposium places art at the center of discussions about the future of biotechnology by presenting works in which artists appropriate tools and techniques of modern biotechnology that have until recently been the exclusive purview of scientists. The event used the exhibition as a departure point for conversations about the future of biotechnology and genetics. The morning session was held at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design and continued at the NC State’s D.H. Hill Jr. Library Auditorium in the afternoon. The morning session consisted of responses from scientists, humanities scholars, artists, and members of the public to specific artworks in the show.
In the afternoon, three panels of artists convened at D.H. Hill Jr. Library Auditorium to discuss:
2—3 pm: Biotechnology as Culture
Moderator: Priscilla Wald
Panelists: Joe Davis, Jennifer Willet, Ciara Redmond, Kirsten Stolle, Maria McKinney, and Rich Pell
Panel description
What is the relationship between luck and genetics? Between biotechnology and phenotypic outcomes? Between individual choices and corporate coercion? And in what ways can artists make use of the culture to make comments on biotechnology, genetics, and science more broadly? Joe Davis and Ciara Remond have both approached the concept of luck in their work, while Jennifer Willet, Rich Pell, Maria McKinney, and Kirsten Stolle have different takes on ways of using identifiable cultural markers to draw audiences into conversations about biotechnology. This panel will explore how biotechnology is culture and the ways that culture can be used to leverage new possibilities for thinking about genetic futures.
3—4 pm: Genetic Arts Intervening in the Anthropocene: Climate, Geoengineering, and Ecosystems
Moderator: Jason Delborne (Science, Policy and Society)
Panelists: Aaron Ellison, David Buckley Borden, Jon Davis, Joel Ong, Erin Kirchner, and Rachel Rusk
Panel description
Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology features a number of works which investigate the way that changes on our planet are related to genetic change or biotechnological affordances. In this panel, the creators of the Novel Ecosystem Generator, Kerasynth, Terra et Venti, and the animations behind Teosinte to Tomorrow will introduce how their work grapples with global environmental change, discuss why art and design are great mediums for addressing the anthropocene, and what the future holds for art about these issues.
4—5 pm: Art and Identities: From Surveillance and Privacy to Collective Identities and Personal Choices
Moderator: Patsy Sibley (Women’s Studies)
Panelists: Charlotte Jarvis, Paul Vanouse, Adam Zaretsky, and Emeka Ikebude
Panel description
Ideas about identity have swirled around developments in human genomic science since its inception. Surveillance and privacy have been investigated throughout the first generation of bioart, including cutting edge work by Paul Vanouse and Heather Dewey-Hagborg. Vanouse’s more recent work, like the America Project, exhibited in this show grapples with collective identity. Emeka Ikebude’s “Fragments” works with the opposition between individual genetic codes and microbiomes which are also largely shared with other people. Issues of diversity have been present in the work of the scientists of the human genome project and the artistic critiques of this work that followed. In other work, Adam Zaretsky asks about human genetic possibilities for the future and he will discuss how his botanical work in Errorairum relates to those inquiries about human futures. Charlotte Jarvis’ In Posse brings attention to ideas about gender and feminism. This panel will discuss the relationships art draws out between science and identities.
The symposium concluded with an open conversation on how we develop richer interfaces between artists and scientists in determining our genetic futures.
NEWS
Leading GES into the Future: A Conversation with Khara Grieger
Blog: Governing Emerging Technologies: A Lesson from Burkina Faso
Study Develops Optimal Cover Crop Adoption Thresholds
Fred Gould: Lessons in Science and Humanity
Podcast: Should We Unleash GMO Mosquitoes?
Advancing Agriculture
Study Analyzes Potato-Pathogen ‘Arms Race’ After Irish Famine
Small-scale Science with Big Results: Using Nanotechnology to Improve Agricultural Sustainability
Preventing the Next Plant Plague
NC State Named a Fulbright Top Producing Institution
Envisioning a More Equitable Food System
Starting Strong
ABOUT
Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures will be an art-science exhibit and symposium of artists, scientists, and humanities scholars, led by the the NC State University Libraries and the Genetic Engineering and Society Center, held at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design, the physical and digital display spaces of the NCSU Libraries and the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA). These activities will elicit discussion about genetics in society through the lens of contemporary art and offer viewers new ways to think about their role in the genetic revolution.
By combining science and art and design, the artists, and artworks chosen for display, will contextualize genetic engineering by bringing it out of the lab and into public places; challenging viewer’s understandings about the human condition, the material of our bodies, and the consequences of biotechnology. The exhibit(s), integrated curriculum, and cross-campus dialogues will raise awareness and discussion about biotechnologies and their consequences in our society, while drawing in art practices for reaching new communities.
Art’s Work/Genetic Futures began as a collaboration between Fred Gould, an evolutionary biologist and co-founder of NC State’s Genetic Engineering and Society Center (GES), and Molly Renda, a designer with NCSU Libraries’ Exhibit Program. Gould wanted to create an art exhibit that addressed the same ethical and practical questions being discussed among GES’s interdisciplinary scholars—including ecologists, social scientists, historians, philosophers, and anthropologists. The Libraries was a natural fit with its record of engaging exhibits, its understanding of the research life cycle, and its access to subject specialists and new technologies. Gould and Renda proposed the concept of a multi-site exhibit to Roger Manley, director of NC State’s Gregg Museum of Art & Design in the months leading up to the opening of their new building. We soon found our curator, Science, Technology, and Society scholar Hannah Star Rogers, whose specialization in the history of art and science was a fortuitous match. Our core planning team also includes GES senior research scholar Todd Kuiken, communications director Patti Mulligan, and Elizabeth Pitts, assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, who formerly served as a postdoctoral researcher at GES.
CORN MAZE
At the heart of From Teosinte to Tomorrow, a quarter-acre stand of non-GMO tropical field corn, you will find an interior room with a raised bed of teosinte, the wild grass thought to be an ancestor of modern corn.
Once there, you will have traveled thousands of years into civilization’s agricultural past, through generations of cultivation practices developed by farmers across the American continents as well as by contemporary biotechnologists. Through countless harvests, the skinny, hard kernels of teosinte grass were gradually hybridized into today’s juicy and sweet corn on the cob.
As humanity struggles with challenges like global population growth and climate change, there is a growing disconnect between first-world populations, the sources of our food, and the people who labor to grow it and deliver it. As one of the earliest cultivated grains in the western hemisphere, the cultural significance of maize (Zea mays) invites conversations about these issues as well as about issues of class, identity, community, and genetics in society.
From Teosinte to Tomorrow was inspired by artist Josef Albers and based on his photographs and drawings during the years he and Anni Albers traveled extensively in Mexico (1930s–60s). The Albers’ deep connection to Mesoamerican art, together with their importance to the growth of art and design in North Carolina, made these reflective works an apt inspirational source for NC State University Libraries exhibit designer Molly Renda and design collaborator William Dodge.
This exhibit is part of the Art’s Work/Genetic Futures art-science exhibition organized by the NC State University Libraries and the GES Center, and shown at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design, in the physical and digital display spaces of the Libraries, and here at the North Carolina Museum of Art Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park.
PROJECT TEAM
About the curator: Hannah Star Rogers is a curator, scholar, and poet. She received her MFA in poetry from Columbia University and Ph.D. at Cornell University on the intersection of art and science. She curated Making Science Visible: The Photography of Berenice Abbott, which received an exhibits prize from the British Society for the History of Science and resulted in an invited lecture at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. She is past Director of Research and Collaboration for Emerge: Artists and Scientists Redesign the Future 2016 and served as Guest Bioart Curator for 2017.
Spaces & Technology: The multi-site exhibition will be held simultaneously at NC State University’s Gregg Museum of Art & Design and in the physical and digital display spaces of NC State University Libraries D. H. Hill Exhibit Gallery and the James B. Hunt Jr. Library. The earthwork, From Teosinte to Tomorrow, a 100 x 100-foot corn maze, will be planted at the North Carolina Museum of Art’s museum park.
Our project team consists of interdisciplinary scholars and artists from inside and outside NC State, including Molly Renda, Fred Gould, Todd Kuiken, Elizabeth Pitts, and Patti Mulligan.
Artists include: Joe Davis, Jon Davis, Heather Dewey-Hagborn, Richard Pell, Kirsten Stolle, Paul Vanouse, Adam Zaretsky, Emilia Tikka, Emeka Ikebude, Jennifer Willet, Charlotte Jarvis, Maria McKinney, Kerasynth, Ciara Redmond, Aaron Ellison, David Buckley Borden, and Joel Ong.
2017 FIELD TRIAL
In April 2017, Art’s Work held a pop-up exhibit that drew over 1,000 visitors to CAM Raleigh.
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PARTNERS
Art’s Work/Genetic Futures is a collaboration between the NC STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES and the GENETIC ENGINEERING AND SOCIETY CENTER, with the GREGG MUSEUM OF ART & DESIGN and the NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF ART.
We are actively seeking funding for this project. For more information contact [email protected]
