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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00601
- Thesis Title
- Amplifying Ambiguities:
- Author
- Nora S. Vaage
- E-mail
- n.vaage AT maastrichtuniversity.nl
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- PhD
- Year
- 2016
- Number of Pages
- 235
- University
- University of Bergen
- Thesis Supervisor
- Rasmus Tore Slaattelid
- Supervisor e-mail
- rasmus.slaattelid AT uib.no
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Theory of science and ethics
- Copyright Ownership
- Nora S. Vaage
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English, Norwegian
- URL where full thesis can be found
- bora.uib.no/handle/1956/12674
- Keywords
- bioart, artscience, ethics, DIYbio, biodesign
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- This doctoral dissertation presents a study of artists’ engagements with wet biotechnologies, considering ‘bioart’ in relation to related approaches. Bioart is at present emerging as an important art form that enters directly into the sphere of biotechnology. Since its emergence in the 1980s, the phenomenon has evolved in parallel with the transition to the 21st century and what is often referred to, both optimistically and ominously, as the “biotech century”. The thesis navigates the tension between bioart’s topical and methodological relationship to biotechnology, and its claims to some other, aesthetic quality defining it as art.
The main problem of the thesis is: What is the specificity of bioart in relation to related phenomena on the topic of biotechnology? The main contention as a response to this question is that bioart is in important ways singular in its artistic approach to the biotechnosciences, and that it is simultaneously closely interlinked with the related phenomena of DIYbio and biodesign, as well as with biotechnology and the art world. The term covers a heterogeneous group of artists, activities and practices, that differ significantly in their approaches.
The thesis is based on a case study performed at the SymbioticA Centre for Excellency in Biological Arts at the University of Western Australia. SymbioticA is an artistic research laboratory that invites artists in residence to do immersive lab research in order to develop their knowledge and ideas for bioartworks, and is still the only artistic centre in the world based within a biology department. The case study was supplemented by participant observation in a number of other contexts including community laboratories, workshops and conferences, visits to the exhibitions Semipermeable(+) and Grow Your Own… Life After Nature, and numerous conversations with practitioners of bioart, DIYbio and biology during the period of 2012-2015.
How is bioart distinct from other approaches to biotechnology? And how is it similar? What ethical issues does it raise and address? The questions regard how these practices are being performed as well as perceived, and which possibilities and challenges they carry. The results of the research project shows that art can contribute in various ways to involving non-specialists in discussion about and engagement with biotechnology, but also that artists are uncomfortable with art being given such instrumentalist descriptions. There is a strong sense that art needs to convey something more than such utilitarian aims as understanding of biotechnoscientific questions and how they impact on society.