Below we show examples of modern artistic and cultural work
addressing or incorporating the new human genetic technologies.
Overview
and analysis
Exhibits,
galleries, and festivals
Film
Television
Music
Performance
and experiential art
Literature:
literary and pop fiction
Literature:
children's literature
Radical
art in opposition to eugenic technologies
Transgenic
and transhuman art
Cloning
humor
Overview and analysis
 Suzanne
Anker and Dorothy Nelkin, The Molecular Gaze: Art in the
Genetic Age, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York
(2004). Review at:
http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/2004/06/10/genomic_portraits.php
Steven
Henry Madoff, "The Wonders of Genetics Breed a New Art,"
New York Times (May 26, 2002) - an important overview
http://www.ekac.org/nytimes.html
Jordan
Lite, "Artists Mine Genetics," Wired (May 13,
2000) - an early overview article
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,36288,00.html
Lists
of artists, books, films and other works engaging human genetic
technologies:
Website
for "Genetics and Culture: from molecular music to transgenic
art," a course given at the UCLA School of Media Arts
http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics-culture.htm
Extensive
links can be found on the websites for:
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Exhibits, galleries,
and festivals
Paradise
Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution was a major exhibit
of works by more than 40 artists that focused on implications
of the new human genetic technologies. First shown in New York
City in 2001, it toured through Pittsburgh, New Orleans and
Dallas between summer 2002 and July 2003. 
http://www.genomicart.org/pn-home.htm
Gene(sis):
Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics was aa major exhibit
organized by the Henry Art Galley in Seattle, where it opened
in April, 2002. It moved on to Berkeley, Minneapolis and Evanston,
IL.
http://www.gene-sis.net
The Ars
Electronica Festivals for 2000 and 2001, held in Germany
since 1981, focused on genetic and biotechnology issues. They
were accused of encouraging eugenic values.
Unnatural
Science, held at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary
Arts in 2000 and 2001 included a number of pieces that touched
upon genetic engineering, including Thomas Grünfeld's Misift
and Gary Schneider's Genetic Self-Portrait.
http://www.massmoca.org/visual_arts/past_exhibitions/visual_arts_past_2000.html
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Film
Human
genetic modification has been the central theme of several Hollywood
films.
An archival
list of films with human genetics or cloning themes
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/clone.html#clone-movies
"A
Futurist at the Movies" by Josh Calder lists and discusses
movies that involve cloning, genetic engineering, biotechnology
and other topics.
http://www.futuristmovies.com/intro/introduction.html
"Screening
DNA: Exploring the Cinema-Genetics Interface" by Stephen
Nottingham
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stephen_Nottingham/DNA1.htm
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Television
Dark
Angel - This television sci-fi drama starring Jennifer Alba
ran for two seasons
between 2000 and 2002.
http://www.darkangelfan.com
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Music
Little popular or art music has drawn on human genetic engineering
for theme or inspiration. An exception might be electronica
/ techno, which through its sounds, artwork, and experience
emphasizes moving "beyond the limits of human" through
a merging with the technological.
Steve
Mizrach, "An ethnomusicological investigation of Techno/Rave"
http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/housemus.html
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Performance and
experiential art
Stelarc
is an Australian performance artist committed to the re-engineering
of the human body
http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/stelarc.html
Creative Time sponsers a public art project that provides individuals
with the information and forms to copyright their own DNA
http://www.creativetime.org/
dnaid/copyright.html
Natalie
Bookchin and Action tank have created an online virtual game
that serves as a critique of genetic engineering and corporate
culture.
http://www.metapet.net
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Literature: literary
and pop fiction
A large body of both literary and popular fiction makes themes
of human genetic modification central.
In Margaret
Atwood's 2003 book, Oryx and Crake, the future is bleak. The
triple whammy of runaway social inequality, genetic technology
and catastrophic climate change, has finally culminated in some
apocalyptic event. As Jimmy, apparently the last human being
on earth, makes his way back to the RejoovenEsencecompound for
supplies, the reader is transported backwards toward that cataclysmic
event, its full dimensions gradually revealed.
http://www.oryxandcrake.co.uk/
J.R.
Lankford, The Jesus Thief, Great Reads Books, 2003, is
about an attempt to clone Jesus from DNA in the Shroud of Turin
http://www.thejesusthief.com/
James
BeauSeigneur's In His Image, Warner Books, 2003, is the
first of a trilogy about cloning Jesus from DNA in the Shroud
of Turin.
http://www.armageddonbooks.com/clone.html
Nancy
Kress's "Beggars Trilogy" is one of the most thoughtful
and extensive considerations of the social and political divisions
that may result from eugenic engineering. One review describes
it as "a story of biological advantages and the complex
maneuverings of society to adjust itself around the cataclysmic
changes resulting from genetic manipulation." http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fantasy_and_science_fiction/18597
In her
2002 novel The Secret, Eva Hoffman blends science fiction
and philosophy to tell the story of a young girl's quest for
identity after she learns she is a clone of her mother. The
novel reflects on the challenges posed by contemporary science
to our deepest notions of subjectivity and human nature.
The Star
Trek series includes volumes 1 and 2 of The Eugenics Wars:
The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh by Greg Cox. In
the books, we learn of Star Trek villain Khan's plan to genetically
engineer perfect humans (dubbed the "Chrysalis Project")
and take over the world. Interestingly, both volumes include
afterwards with historical references.
Several science fiction anthologies focusing on genetic engineering
and cloning have been published.
- Clones - edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois,
Ace Books 1998
- Genometry - edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois,
Ace Books 2001
- Not of Woman Born - edited by Constance Ash, ROC
books 1999
Greg
Bear's novel Darwin's Radio explores the future of human
evolution, taking a pro-eugenic position. In a 1999 interview,
he describes the human future: "Nanotechnology and biotechnology
point toward a time, not too far off, when we can have complete
control of our bodies and even of the way we think. These choices
lead to some fascinating possibilities, including designer bodies
and designer minds—the rather disturbing notion of fashion
adopting the bio-sciences!"
http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/promo/bear/
Aldous
Huxley's famous dystopic portrait of the future, Brave New
World, is often cited as uncomfortably predictive of the
eugenic future we may be heading towards with the new biotechnologies.
A comprehensive
list of literature and fiction dealing with genetic technologies
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/clone.html
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Literature: children's
literature
The degree to which human genetic engineering themes have penetrated
the culture is seen in the way they are treated in children's
literature.
The Replica series by Marilyn Kaye for 9-12 year old
girls features a young clone named Amy as the heroine. There
are 24 books in the series, which deals with such dark themes
as a eugenic future populated by children cloned to be "spare
parts" for their parents and super scientists intent on
creating a master race to take over the world.
http://www.kidsreads.com/reviews/0553487493.asp
Non-fiction children's literature includes Cloning: Frontier
of Genetic Engineering, by David Jefferies. It is intended
for 9-12 year olds and presents cloning and genetically modified
humans as desirable and inevitable.
Radical art in opposition
to eugenic technologies
Some radical artists and collectives have focused on human
genetic technology themes.
The Critical
Art ensemble explores the "intersections between art, technology,
radical politics and Critical Theory." They have created
several websites that act as parodies of the destructive ideologies
of biotechnology: Flesh Machine, The Society for Reproductive
Anachronism, Cult of the New Eve, and Genterra.
http://www.critical-art.net/
Steve
Kurtz, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo campus
of the State University of New York and an activist artist who
has worked with the Critical Art ensemble, has attempted to
provoke debate about genetic research with installations that
use bacteria and DNA. In 2004, he was arrested under the U.S.
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which prohibits
the use of certain biological materials for anything other than
a "prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other
peaceful purpose."
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63637,00.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/fbi-buffalo.cfm
GenoChoice
is a website that parodies the eugenic future in which parents
can design their own children by allowing visitors to "create
your own genetically healthy child online."
http://www.genochoice.com/
Diana
Ludin: Genetic Response System 3.0
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/genresponse/index.html
Sarah
Diamond: (Un)Free Radicals Towards a Manifesto of Shared Risk
http://www.itaucultural.org.br/invencao/papers/Diamond.htm
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Transgenic and
transhuman art
Eduardo Kac commissioned French scientists to create a transgenic
rabbit carrying jellyfish genes that enabled its fur to glow
green under ultraviolet light, and sparked much publicity and
press comment concerning transgenic arts.
http://www.ekac.org/
Natasha
Vita-More works through the Extropy Institute to promote extropic
art . She wrote the Extropic Art Manifesto in 1989,
http://www.natasha.cc
The
Transhuman Web Alliance website contains extensive material
on transhuman arts
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Art/
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Cloning humor
The topic of cloning reflexively elicits joking behavior, in
a way that most genetic, reproductive, medical or scientific
procedures do not. Why is this?
A web
site of cloning cartoons
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/cloning/1.asp
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