Victimless Leather?

An artwork exploring the question of life gains an unexpected facet when it must be killed

By Matt Ransford Posted 05.15.2008 at 11:36 am 7 Comments

Victimless Leather Tissue Culture and Art Project

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has had to kill one of the works currently on display in its recent Design and the Elastic mind show. Literally. The piece is called Victimless Leather. It's an incubator built from a series of flasks which provides nutrients to feed a miniature living coat. The tiny coat was comprised of a biodegradable polymer matrix in the shape of a doll's jacket covered in a layer of living tissue made up of mouse stem cells. When the cells began growing to quickly, the curators of the show had to cut off the nutrients—effectively killing the cells. The artists couldn't be happier.

The idea, of course, was to question our understanding of what is alive and what our responsibility is "towards the living systems that we engage in manipulating," says one of the artists, Oron Catts.

Catts is the director of a group called SymbioticA, that operates out of the University of Western Australia. They are an interdisciplinary artistic laboratory at the school that aims to present scientific research through artistic inquiry.

The piece is part of a larger series called The Tissue Culture and Art Project undertaken by the group since 1996. In it, they strive to blur the lines between what most of us consider to be living and what science considers to be living. Past exhibits have included the NoArk, a play on Noah's Ark consisting of transparent cases filled with unclassifiable blobs of tissue from various laboratories and tissue banks; Worry Dolls made from living and synthetic materials; and Disembodied Cuisine, which grew animal skeletal muscle over biopolymer in order to create an edible "steak" from an animal not yet born.

Via NY Times

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7 Comments

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europeanguy

05/15/08 at 5:14 pm

its too not to

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914ian914

05/16/08 at 8:56 am

to europeanguy:
what?

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P1h3r1e3d13

05/16/08 at 1:26 pm

europeanguy is right; near the end of the first paragraph, you should write "too quickly" rather than "to quickly." That is a shockingly terrible mistake in a publication of this caliber.

@ europeanguy: It is "It's," not "its."

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Alex R.

05/17/08 at 7:28 am

This type of thing seems like it could go too far....I woud'nt want my body parts in an exhibition when I'm dead, and these tissues could probably have been better used.

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mhmdkhamis

06/15/08 at 2:34 pm

العاب البنات
العاب باربي
<

صور سيارات
نكت
برامج حماية وانتى فايروس

العاب اطفال

العاب طبخ

العاب تلبيس

العاب ميك اب

العاب ديكور وترتيب

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fchristie

06/28/08 at 6:40 am

Advancements in science present us with unintended consequences; yet, we continue to rely on the fallible. I read an interesting comment on this topic from Michael Laitman who offers the following:

“While we’re on the subject of people’s responsibilities, then can we say that our future with nanotechnology and stem cells is in the “trustworthy” hands of “responsible” people? If we continue relying on people’s better judgment, then just imagine what kind of a world our future generations will be living in? We simply need to change ourselves, ASAP, otherwise the world’s really going to get out of control.

I have a question for all the responsible people, wherever they are: Are you spreading the method of correction?”

For related articles visit http://www.laitman.com/2008/05/symbiotica-art-exhibit-portrays-the-need-for-responsibility-toward-life/