Day 5 – Friday 20 November
by Girish Sagaram
The final day of the SymbioticA Biotech-Art workshop began with a session about plant tissue culture and cloning with Dr. Tien Huynh from RMIT Applied Science. We were given tiny ‘daughter’ plants cloned from a Chinese orchid species and separated them in sterile conditions before planting them in individual sealed jars containing 6 different mixtures of growing media. The recipes consisted of varying quantities of charcoal, coconut milk, banana, sugar and other nutrients in an agar gel. These kinds of experiments are used to fine-tune the way plants are grown in the horticulture industry where propagation from cuttings (essentially a form of both cloning and tissue culture) has a long history.
The discussion about plant tissue culture led to speculation about the possibility of combining plant and animal DNA. We know that in the 1990s there was widespread debate about so-called “frankenfoods”, one example being the frost-resistant tomato plant that was created using genes from a fish. In terms of future scenarios I was interested in the idea of growing plant and animal cells together to form a new type of tissue, one that could grow and photosynthesise. Imagine a living, growing solar-powered building skin, or what about a solar powered human! I was surprised to learn that something like this already occurs naturally. There exists a type of sea slug (several different species, one from Australia). The slug’s body contains a network of ducts which contain the green chloroplasts from the algae it eats. The slug’s genome contains DNA from the algae that allows it to utilise algal chloroplasts for energy. When the slug is born it eats the algae and takes the chloroplasts into its cells. From then on it is able to produce its own energy. The New Scientist website contains a video showing the sea slug at work.
The second task of the day was touted as possibly the most morally and ethically loaded for many participants and this was the “killing and cleaning” session. All the biological materials used during the week needed to be “killed” or safely disposed of and equipment sterilised in a highly controlled manner ensuring no escape or contamination. Being unable to attend this session myself I am told it was undertaken with a surprising lack of ceremony, items were dumped in the appropriate biohazard bag or container or placed in the autoclave and everyone made their way out to have lunch! It seems to me this was partly because none of the materials used in the workshop were actually considered dangerous, and not just because we were simply running short of time. This also suggested that some of the qualms voiced during the week with regard to the use and destruction of living things had given way to scientific detatchment and an understanding of certain realities of working in the lab.
In the final afternoon session the group held a public symposium where participants were given the opportunity to present some of their own work and discuss their specific areas of interest as well as to reflect upon their experiences in the workshop and the issues it raised during the week. During the seminar there was a re-engagement and review of the arguments/discussions held during the week, about the role of the artist to assist in the process of “cultural digestion” of science and what the stuff, the meaning, the “Meat” of this art would be, aside from the material, the “meat” that it could be composed of.
The topics of dissussion ranged from the future of global climate, to a report presenting a set of responses from participants to the question “What if..?” (i.e. the possible direction individual artists might take in their work as a result of ideas generated by the workshop, this included a series of small sketches depicting these “germs” of ideas.) to a sort of performance “happening” involving (not always enthusiastic) audience participation to physically recreate the gel electrophoresis experiment of earlier in the week. The idea behind this was to try and stimulate open participation in some of the questions raised in the workshop through physical manipulation of space and semiotic and social cues within the metaphor of “objective” scientific inquiry. I think it’s clear that many participants retain uncertainties about many of the issues raised. And rightly so, since the black/white, agree/disagree dichotomies — even if presented on a sliding scale — fail to appreciate the diversity and complexity of views.
At the conclusion of the workshop there seemed to be the strong desire for members of the group to stay engaged with this subject matter, and with each other in the future pursuit of artistic and design endeavours. It’s clear that the areas of science, technology and ethics we have briefly explored are ripe with unresolved tensions and amazing possibilities.
