The Genetic Revolution

The Paradise Now exhibition handout stated: “We are at a threshold, witnesses to the moment when genetic research is rewriting the definition of life . . . Artists have claimed an important role in this ongoing exploration, creating images that literally give shape to abstract, complex concepts.” (Janice Hopkins Tanne). The artworks of many artists were innovative in content and rendering focusing on 1) research into the nature of the human genome and 2) exploring the implications of biotechnology on animal and plant life. The two sections of the exhibition address major issues such as race, economics, reproduction, privacy, identification, health, time and religion. The artists, curators and artworks are all examples and representations of the connection between science, society and the arts.

After researching the Paradise Now art works and instillations I came across photographer Nancy Burson’s “the Human Race Machine”. The interactive computer instillations allows for the viewer to step into the photo booth, take a passport size picture, and then takes that recorded picture and transforms it into a White, Black, Hispanic or Asian face. The point of the instillation is to prove that “all humans are 99.9% genetically identical and there is no gene for race” (Tanne). Thus far in the semester we have been prodding and poking and trying to define and characterize the artist by gender, race and sexuality, form, space and time only to be positioned against science and evolution and psychology and quantum physics which tell us that we are actually only .1% different.

1. Tanne, Janice Hopkins “Paradise Now: picturinh the genetic revolution” British Medical Journal. October 7 2000. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118701/.

2. Lynch, Lisa. “Culturing the Pleeband: The Idea of the ‘Public’ In Genetic Art”. Project Muse: Scholarly Online Journals. 24 March 2010.