Bioart - an experiment that could change the future of life?

Dr. Nicholas Durr's anatomy class

The spotlight shines on Dr. Durr, who manipulates a tendon with one hand and demonstrates how the hand muscles work with the other, and on the executed prisoner. The paid viewers have different expressions, each focused on different things, and the subtle differences reveal each person's personality; Meticulous dress symbolizes professional excellence and gives people a sense of immersive authenticity. This is the scene depicted in Rembrandt's famous painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholas Durr."

Anatomy classes were a social event in the Netherlands at the time, and the public could pay an entrance fee to attend them in classrooms and even theatres. Dr. Doerr, who wears the hat in the painting, does not perform dissections publicly in reality, leaving the task to his assistants. But Rembrandt dramatised the portraits in such a way that the ordinary dead became the center of gravity, rather than only the executed Jesus could be included in the artwork, and here science replaced theology, and it was from the 17th century that Western science became an important foundation of the modern world.

From the survey office to the survey commune

Surveying commune

The venue for the dissection was a 15th-century building called the Waag house, which still stands in the heart of downtown Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The top floor, once home to the Guild of blacksmiths, stonemasons, painters, and surgeons, was maintained and restored several times before being leased in the 21st century to the Waag Society, a research institute that promotes the interaction of scientific, cultural, and artistic experiments, on the second floor of the former Anatomy Theatre.

The ceiling of the building still contains drawings of the Physicians' Guild, and a copy of the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholas Durr hangs on the wall (the original is in the Royal Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague). In an interview, Lucas Evers from the Surveying Commune approached the painting and said: "This is probably the earliest Bio-Art collaboration in the Netherlands."

Measuring the interior of the commune

The Surveying Commune: an important force for the advancement of Dutch science and art

Founded in 1994, the Survey Commune is an important promoter of Dutch science, culture and art. One of its branches, the Open Wetlab, focuses on the study of ethics in the biological sciences and life. They advocate that bioscience should be integrated with the social environment, using the participation of artists, designers and the public to create new media forms and promote the development of biotechnology on a global scale as a catalyst. The objects of study are living things, such as plants, animals and people; Existing projects include synthetic bulletproof skin, microbial research, stem cell breeding teeth, and open genomes.

The biological sciences use living systems and organisms to develop and produce useful products, and artists use this scientific experimental method to create a series of works with a new aesthetic perspective and attitude toward the growth of living bodies.

According to Lucas Evers, managing curator of Arts, Science and Technology at the Measuring Commune and founder of Open Wetlab, the Measuring Commune is neither a curator nor an organiser at this stage. Its collaborators include organizers The Hague Medical Research Council (ZonMW), curators MU Art Space Eindhoven, and artists, most of whom have collaborated on proposals with scientific institutes such as OpenWetLab. Bio Art Laboratories is run by artist Jalila Essaidi.

Lucas Evers is the managing planner for Arts, Science and Technology at the Measuring Commune

The Survey Commune's projects also include the Do It Yourself Human Enhancement Clinic, which conducts experiments on human improvement primarily from an artistic and designer perspective. Future Emerging Art and Technology brings artists into the lab to work on quantum computing, quantum physics, synthetic materials, CRISPR Cas9-targeted gene editing technology, supercomputers, and group robotics; The BioHack Academy hosts a 10-week program that allows artists and students to work with scientific researchers to develop and run open source LABS.

Paul Vanouse's "Suspect Inversion Center"

The arts of bioscience can have a positive economic, social and educational impact. Once open genomics is put on the market, users can generate their own DNA through technical tools for molecular diagnosis and reduce medical costs. Open PCR, for example, is a machine that costs a fraction of the market price and can be made affordable to a large number of people. In addition, artists as explorers can help academic researchers continue their research in the field of life sciences more comprehensively.

Bioart Lab: A vast interactive network

The Bioart Lab Foundation was founded by Juliela Essadi, winner of the Biotechnology Art and Design Award co-organized by the Surveying Commune. Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, Juliela understands the value of cross-cutting and good ideas from different fields and how to capitalize on them.

Juliela's research on bulletproof skin projects has resulted in collaboration with many international laboratories and working partners. She realized that these opportunities were valuable, and in order to pave the way for other equally influential projects, she decided to set up a foundation to provide equipment and intellectual assistance to top talent at the intersection of the arts and biological sciences, so that they could better understand these ideas and realize their economic potential.

Juliela's bulletproof skin project

Violent news flooded social media, creating a climate of panic in the society, greatly affecting the rational judgment of individuals and society about the existence of threats. Juliela explores the social, political, ethical and cultural dimensions of biotechnology around the worldwide issue of personal safety.

In the laboratory, spider silk produced by genetically modified organisms is added to skin tissue to make human skin bulletproof. Spider silk is stronger than iron wire, can withstand bullets when woven, and is produced by living organisms.

Genetically modified spider silk

Juliela asked: If the human body can also produce such silk, then we can not bulletproof? Bulletproof skin can actually withstand bullets, but not at full speed. Through this work, she wants to raise the issue of security to a conceptual level, to provoke discussion on what kind of security model and concept can be beneficial to society.

Juliela's bulletproof skin project

The Bioart Lab Foundation is a healthy mix of public funding, private funding, volunteers and material donations, so it is a vast network of universities, consortia and other institutions. Within this network, the Foundation provides knowledge and fosters collaboration. "If there's a good idea, it doesn't matter what the label is on the participant. What's exciting is that a good idea can bring artists and researchers together." A spokesperson for the lab said, "We want to provide the infrastructure for bioart in the Netherlands. In collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Earth, Life Sciences and Humanities (NWO), The Hague Medical Research Council (ZonMW) and the MU Art Space Eindhoven, the Foundation provides financial grants and opportunities for new works of art to be exhibited on major art platforms in the Netherlands. The environment in the Netherlands is great, but in terms of personal economic development, artists are still struggling."

"The art of bioscience uses living matter and cannot be separated from art forms related to ethical principles. We see this medium as a means of conveying information and as an inspiration to society. However, we see that the artist himself is capable of critical reflection. In this way, our focus is on promoting these artists and their ideas. We help them realize their ideas, expand their social impact, sometimes help them protect their intellectual property, and draft the Outlines of their business plans. In this way, we are creating an art and design movement that makes good ideas really achievable in a field that is mostly dominated by conceptual art."

The foundation is a non-profit organization, but some projects are intended to be commercialized by third parties. A good example is Mestic®, a method of making bioplastics from cow dung mixed with paper and textiles.

Mestic is a method of making bioplastics from cow dung mixed with paper and textiles

Fecal pollution from intensive farming is a big problem in the Netherlands. Data show that excessive amounts of phosphate are produced in the livestock industry, mainly due to cow manure. This will weaken the economic position of the Dutch dairy industry. The Dutch government started on phosphate policy, but it did not solve the problem. Mestic is economically viable and can be used to convert cow manure into locally produced materials.

This can reduce dependence on international oil, increase local employment, improve the living environment of dairy cows and bring economic benefits to farmers. It is sustainable and can be used for industrial production and become an emerging industry in the future.

Ethical problem of technology

At times, some of the works of the Bioart project have raised social unease and questions, and even concerns about the way humans manipulate living things. "This sense of anxiety seems to stem from an ambiguous view of ethics, which involves a conventional contract between human beings and life processes. Applied knowledge of the biological sciences has led to a range of outcomes for which our value and belief systems are unprepared." Australian artist Orron Catts published in the Measuring Commune's Art of Bioscience issue.

Cates is the director of SymbioticA, the Bioarts Centre at the University of Western Australia. His most famous work is "Victimless Leather" (2004), a stitch-free miniature jacket grown from living organism tissue.

Olon Cates' Harmless Leather

Working together, the artists and researchers grew connective tissue from mouse cells, added human bone stem cells, and coated it with a degradable polymer to form a strong skin structure. This "leather" needs to be grown in a bioreactor, with cells fed by an automated drip system. When the polymer degrades, a jacket-shaped organism emerges. This little coat, which can only be worn by mice, may be the prototype of the future of human clothing; Biotechnology in the laboratory may be the future of the production of everyday products. Both the subject and object of art are "life", and many works boldly tell the public that living organisms can be manipulated and applied to future realities.

Bioscience artists "invade" unusual fields of literature and art, challenging and questioning the boundaries set by natural growth processes and the normative order of modern society. Cates believes that the art of bioscience is not what science or technology can conceive, but a cultural examination of action. If, after a few decades, artificially modified and hybridized cells divide to form tissues, new mutated organisms, including mutants, and then entire ecosystems, can the contemporary human value balance sustain such a view of life?

In this "revolution" of life, the Measuring Commune and the Bioart Lab are actively connecting universities, companies, organizations and private institutions around the world. The Survey Commune also holds workshops, competitions, lectures, publications, resident studies, exhibitions and other activities on a regular basis.

They attract professionals from all fields to participate in research and debate, open laboratories to the public and the media, and use the art of bioscience to convey and update ethical cultural concepts. This interference with the established social order and cultural ethical boundaries is actually a social movement with political implications.

Marleen Stikker, founder of Measurement Commune, once predicted that "the future of biotechnology will be like the Internet of things, which will penetrate every aspect of society in an invisible form... We want to work with designers and artists to bring knowledge into the public domain, because no one can predict what the consequences of user-generated DNA will be."

A few hundred years ago, anatomy was considered a violation of religious ethics and was rejected by the general public. A few decades ago, artists themselves could not imagine that biological tissue could serve as a material medium on the color palette. Art, through exquisite or grotesque aesthetic effects, presents possible situations to the public in advance, which Cates believes is the "alternative social contract" of artists. The unease caused by the work is actually the author's own distress, which is intended to make contemporary society jump out of the current development track, think and explore among the many options that have not yet happened, in order to make the best choice for the common ecological future.

A spokesperson for the Bioart Lab said: "It is a historical tradition that ethical boundaries should be broken. It is a collective responsibility to test these boundaries. Art is an ideal tool to explore the surface of the unknown, very different from the ivory tower of scientific research."

Lucas said, "You know Dunne&Raby? Yes, he teaches in the Design Interaction Department at the Royal College of Art and is the author of Everything Conjecture: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreams. Their fiction is far more than reality, and their projects are relatively simple to improve the human race through technology, prolong life, maximize human function, etc., without seeking public opinion. I don't entirely agree with the critical theory of Dunn and Rabi, as opposed to focusing on the development of superindividuals, technology should be composed of a variety of complex ethical elements. The art of bioscience is a field full of contradictions, and not many artists practice it. In addition, the art of biological science lacks theoretical foundation in the Netherlands, and the design class focuses on functionality and is more practical."