Artificial Natural

There is a belief among human beings that we are above or separate from nature due to our advances in scientific research and knowledge. Because of this we seem to lack the ability to interact with the ‘artificial natural’ in the same way as we do for ‘real’ natural beings and environments.

Artist Eduardo Kac, the creator of the “GFP Bunny” Alba, has approached this issue with his transgenic artwork, which Kac says is ‘a new art form based on the use of genetic engineering to transfer natural or synthetic genes to an organism, to create unique living beings. This must be done with great care, with acknowledgment of the complex issues thus raised and, above all, with a commitment to respect, nurture, and love the life thus created.’¹ The appearance of Alba in the media caused a public dialogue about her social integration. Similar to the worlds attachment to Dolly, the first cloned sheep, Alba is a very special and unique animal looked after by the artist and his family, ‘she immediately awoke in me a strong and urgent sense of responsibility for her well-being.’¹ Kac is questioning and trying to define ‘interspecies communication between humans and a transgenic mammal’¹. Alba is at the centre of Kac’s campaign to create ‘public respect and appreciation for the emotional and cognitive life of transgenic animals’.

Kac has used media attention skillfully to communicate his message as an art project and social experiment; where as the famous scientific breakthrough of the ‘mouse with the human ear’ is not an art project, a purely scientific advance that was reported in a harsher light. In 1999, ‘the anti-genetics group, Turning Point Project, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times showing the photo of the mouse with the human ear, with a misleading caption that read, "This is an actual photo of a genetically engineered mouse with a human ear on its back". In truth, the mouse was not genetically engineered, and the "ear" had no human cells in it.’² These examples show how design aids the representation of scientific advances; a designer would approach this issue more holistically, showing the public the science and social ethics.

¹ http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html

² http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1644154.htm

Image: http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html