the Semi-Living

Image by sctv via Flickr

The Tissue Culture and Art Project(Hosted at SymbioticA, University of Western Australia) describe the Semi-Living as a new class of object.

The TC&A is introducing a new class of object/being in the continuum of life: the Semi-Living are sculpted from living and non-living materials, and are new entities located at the fuzzy border between the living/non-living, grown/constructed, born/manufactured, and object/subject. While
the Semi-Living rely on the vet/mechanic, the farmer/artist or the nurturer/constructor to care for them, they are not human imitations and do not attempt to be human replacements. Rather they are a new class of art/being that is both similar and different from other human artefacts (human’s
extended phenotype) such as selectively bred domestic plants and animals. These entities consist of living biological systems that are artificially designed and need human and/or technological intervention for their survival and maintenance.

Artistic Life Forms that would never survive Darwininan Evolution: Growing Semi-Living Entities. “Art and Nature: Darwinism, ecology, biology and the future of art” Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Publication, 2003.

These entities(if they can be called that) lie outside Darwinian evolution, although they are genetically similar to other cell type, they are either fragments of organisms and either have a finite life cycle(because they have no ability to reproduce) or like cancers, have been immortalised.  They are also entirely dependant upon an etxernal technological support system that keeps them warm, protected from infection and fed and oxygenated. There is a technological selection pressure, only those cells that can survive the environment will be able to grow. However without an immune system their interaction with the naked non-sterile environment is short and quick, and they soon die.

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Biofacts – semi-living organisms? metaphors made flesh?

This is a site to document interviews and insights into biofacts.
I wish to answer the following questions.

1. What are the aesthetics of care of biofacts?
2. What is the relationship between creators and their designed model systems?
3. What are the metaphor complexities using model organisms in human disease research?
4. Are the terms semi-living (Tissue Culture and Art project) and biofact equivalent?