The Bioartist: Jester at the technoscience court?

4 days into DNA extraction, spinal cord cell rescue, GFP transfer, and tissue culture for dummies, I still wonder what roles bioartists can play with respect to science and society? Somehow the image of the jester comes to my mind. A person on a court with powerful hierachies and strict rules that is the only one who lives outside of the hierachies and may break rules without fears of jobloss or being outlawed. While jesters have often been “natural fools” that were mentally and physically disabled persons, the “licensed fools”  were usually smart and resourcful individuals who were the only ones to be allowed to give bad news to the emperor or say things no one else dared to.

Faced with ever increading possibilities and powers of biotechnology, tissue engineering and synthetic biology, those who develop the new technoscience find themselves in the knowledge-based bioeconomy structure, rewarding innovations that cater the business-as-usual mode of thinking. Trapped in a “technoscience court” where are the jesters to relieve us, and who could take such role. Designers seem to be the wrong choice for this task, as they just seem to fulfill the engineers dream by choosing the right color of the technocratic product. The artist, however, challenges the business-as-usual mode and may act outside the box.

There is much talk  about engaging social scientists and the public in a scientific dialogue. Why not involve bioartists in upstream scientific research?

The bioartist as a creative prosthetic tissue in the societal fabric of the global superorganism.