[Discuss] BioTechnique exhibit: looks interesting and provocative

Sat Oct 27 15:56:54 CDT 2007

This just in.  Read the description of the installations for the good 
stuff.  ACTLabbies, go thou and do likewise...  -Sandy
---------------------------------

BioTechnique

a coalescence of the Northern California Science Studies Network
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
San Francisco

Northern California hosts more life sciences companies than anywhere 
else in the world. BioTechnique showcases a visually rich assortment of 
organisms, semi-living objects and intricate life support systems, 
shining light on the technologies that are changing the global economy 
and the earth itself. The product of biological techniques, the 
exhibition artworks have been “grown” rather than manufactured.  More 
details on the exhibit are below.

You are hereby invited to a tour of this exhibit, with the curator Phil 
Ross, followed by an informal potluck.  If you are coming from far 
afield, and are looking for a last minute thing to bring to the potluck 
try Good Life Grocery (details below).

Questions/comments/concerns: Eben Kirksey (skirksey at ucsc.edu), 831-429-8276

BioTechnique Tour with Phil Ross
http://www.philross.org/

2:30-5:00 PM Sunday
November 4th, 2007
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street, San Francisco, 94103-3138
($5 for students, $7 non-students)
tel 415.978.2700
http://www.ybca.org/

BioTechnique Potluck
Hosted by Nicole Archer: 415-786-9006
(5 minute car ride from Yerba Buena)
41 Putnam Street, San Francisco, 94110
(on-street parking available)
5:30-6:30 PM Sunday
November 4th, 2007

Good Life Grocery
448 Cortland Ave
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 648-3221

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is pleased to
present BioTechnique, a group exhibition that
explores biotechnology, exposing the ethical,
cultural, and ecological issues and implications
surrounding the subject. As part of YBCA's
Reality Check series, one of the three "big
ideas" that guides programming in the 07-08
season, BioTechnique stems from a burgeoning
artistic form called Bioart, which seeks to
demystify the field of biology by bringing the
experiments and tools of biotechnology into the
public realm through art. The exhibition is
organized by guest curator Philip Ross, and
includes artists Denise King, Allison Wiese,
Brandon Ballengée, Tissue Culture and Art
Project, and Philip Ross.

BioTechnique presents a visually rich assortment
of artworks, crafted from organisms, semi-living
objects, and devices using biological
techniques. The artists participating in
BioTechnique are invested in the life forms they
alter or support, and act as caretakers and
technicians of their works of art. To place this
work in a broader historical context, the
exhibition which is based on the idea of
manipulating living organisms, also includes
artifacts created by biological engineers,
industrial technologists, and ecological
researchers.

Denise King will create window-sized habitats
filled with water collected from salt ponds in
San Francisco. The bacteria living in these
waters will feed from the light shining into the
galleries, and their habitats will present
themselves like a stained glass window. The
salinity levels of the brines alter the
appearance of each realm. The low salinity ponds
are greenish and contain many different types of
organisms including insects and fish. The medium
salinity ponds are an orange to peach color, too
salty for life other than brine shrimp and
bacteria. The high salinity brines range from a
deep pink to deep vermillion, colored by the
presence of halophilic bacteria.

Allison Wiese's Still No. 2, is a corn whiskey
distillery constructed from household
appliances. Still No. 2 is equal parts garage
hobby, remedial science project and act of civil
disobedience, incorporating household plumbing
supplies and the inherited expertise of
distillers spanning many generations, both
amateurs and professionals.

Brandon Ballengée's installation, Visualizing
Biological Abstraction in Nature, will display
preserved specimens collected in the Bay Area to
visually highlight their unique developmental
tragedy. During the exhibition, Ballengée will
also lead ecological field trips for students
and the public to local wetlands to investigate
firsthand the deformities among local amphibian
populations.

Tissue and Culture Project will present a piece
called NoArk, an updated version of a
Wunderkammer, the cabinets of curiosity that
preceded the natural history museum's refined
taxonomy of organisms, objects, and other
physical wonders. Their collection includes a
living mass of growing cells, taking the form of
tissue in a state-of-the-art biotech incubator.
NoArk's protective vessel is a new type of body
in the world, brought together as the assembled
parts of different organisms, merged with
technological support systems.

For the past six years Philip Ross has been
building a series of technologically
sophisticated hydroponic gardens. BioTechnique
will host the latest incarnation of this
continued project, called Junior's Return. In
Junior's Return a networked garden of eighteen
glass capsules provide a controlled hydroponic
environment, where the plants' roots are
submerged in nutrient-infused water and LED bulbs
supply the necessary light.

BioTechnique breaks down the barriers of entry
to biotechnology, uncovering a subject that the
general public knows little about. The artworks
in the exhibition have been "grown" rather than
manufactured, resulting in a unique show where
science and art intersect.