Jennifer Willet & Sean Bailey
BIOTEKNICA
Concordia University
Summary
BIOTEKNICA is an ongoing collaborative art/science project conducted by Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet. Postulating a future/present where biotechnological protocols produce designer organisms based on consumer demand, we have produced a variety of virtual and laboratory based artworks focusing on irrational and grotesque incarnations of the biotechnological body. Our work is modeled on the Teratoma, a cancerous growth containing multiple tissues like hair, skin, and vascular systems. Monstrous as this may seem, scientists today are interested in the Teratoma as an instance of spontaneous cloning, and a source of stem cells. BIOTEKNICA both embraces and critiques evolving biotechnologies, considering the deep contradictions and complexities that these technologies offer.
In 2004 we worked as Research Fellows at the SymbioticA Art/Science Collaborative Research Laboratories at The University of Western Australia, where we practiced tissue culture and tissue engineering protocols towards the production of artwork. In 2006 we returned to SymbioticA to complete our Teratological Prototypes in collaboration with Tissue Culture & Art project (Catts, Zurr), and exhibited this work ‘live’ for the first time at ISEA Zero One San Jose 2006.
Our presentation will focus primarily on the complex (and often contradictory) ethics implicated in mobilizing the bodies in biotechnology in the production of artwork – BioArt. We will utilize ongoing BIOTECKNICA research as a case study to investigate notions of legitimacy in instances of interdisciplinary (Art/Science) production with an emphasis on our experience as non-scientists working in the SymbioticA laboratories and our status as pseudo-specialists in peer-based ethics review procedures for research involving the use of animal and human subjects – and the larger implications of biotechnology and BioArt production towards shifting conceptions of the body as a biotechnological resource.
Biographies
Jennifer Willet is an artist, a part-time faculty member in Studio Arts at Concordia University and a Ph.D. student in the Interdisciplinary Humanities program at the same institution. Her work explores notions of self and subjectivity in relation to biomedical, bioinformatics, and digital technologies with an emphasis on social and political criticism. She has exhibited extensively and presented her research across Canada and internationaly. Since 2002, she has collaborated with Shawn Bailey on an innovative computational, biological, and artistic project called BIOTEKNICA.
www.bioteknica.org
Shawn Bailey is a practicing artist working with digital print media, video, and installation. His current research explores notions of authority, control structures, media, and international biotech and pharmaceutical policies. He is an Associate Professor at Concordia University in Studio Arts (Print Media) and an artist-researcher with the Hexagram Institute. He embraces a professional art practice rooted in interdisciplinary considerations manifest in exhibitions, publications, public lectures, and multi-media/web projects across Canada and internationally. Since 2002, he has collaborated with Jennifer Willet on an innovative computational, biological, and artistic project called BIOTEKNICA.
www.bioteknica.org