Tissues, Cultures, Art

Tissues, Cultures, Art, is the first in Palgrave Studies in BioArt series. Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr narrate their collaborative and sometimes provocative artistic practice and scholarly thought from 1996 to date. Catts & Zurr pioneered the use of tissue engineering and regenerative biology techniques to create sculptures they called – Semi-Living. These, ironically, became pre-curser to the burgeoning industries of Cellular Agriculture and Biofabrication.
The authors researched, through hands-on work in the biological laboratory, concepts such as partial-life, and DNA –Chauvinism. They introduce the term ‘metabolic rift technologies’ to point to the growing rapture between humans and their environment, and the fantasy of living in a technologically mediated utopia. They explore life’s resistance to reducationism, systemization and automation and asking whether there is something unique to life that we can relate to (as we are alive!) without resorting to metaphysical explanations.
The authors' ideas and projects reach beyond the confines of art and are often cited as an inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction, and food. Additionally, following the experience and success of their practice SymbioticA laboratory was founded in 2000, the first research laboratory of its kind, enabling artists and researchers to engage in wet biology practices in a research-intensive university’s biological science department.
Through a hybrid of personal reflections, poetics and anecdotes with a more rigorous, scholarly approach while mixing in visual representations of their artworks, the authors present a critical view on the use of life as a raw material for human manipulation.